


The Story of a Stormbringer

by FallenAngelofSlovakia



Category: Naruto
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:15:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenAngelofSlovakia/pseuds/FallenAngelofSlovakia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hated, scorned, loathed... Left alone to die in pain... But he will not give up, oh no. He will gain the power and he would make them crawl to his feet and beg for forgiveness. If beacause of respect and realization of their mistakes, or because of fear... It doesn't matter at all...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter I: The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I am Fallen Angel of Slovakia. I am new here, but I'm not that new to writing fan stories. I already have account on FF and createyourownfanfiction, but because of idiots on the first and lack of readers on the second, I have decided to also create account here. FF still remains my "main" page though, and probably will until this page runs at 100%. This is my second fiction, first here. Before you start to read the actual story, please know that:
> 
> Just to make sure, disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
> 
> This story is big AU, very big. Many things are different, one of them are chakra reserves: My chakra reserves are very different – more complicated. While in canon, they are the same as physical stamina, in my stories, they are not. Stamina is merely one of aspects that form them (Others for physical part body : speed, agility, strength and other. For mind: Intelligence, Experience, Mental Endurance and other). That also means that depleting one's chakra reserves does not mean they have no physical stamina. Also, chakra reserves of females in my stories are smaller in overall and they also have better chakra control. 
> 
> Now, please enjoy the story and tell me your opinion. Any feedback is welcome, be it praise or criticism.

**Fire Country, Village Hidden in Leafs (near Ninja Academy), 2.9. 3039EE, 1530hrs**

Young boy, not older than five, was currently hiding in treetop of one of the old oaks near the Ninja Academy of the Leaf Village. He had pale, almost white, skin, "noblish" and somewhat feminine face with almond shaped eyes with sapphire colored pupils. His feminine look was furthered by his long straight hairs, which almost reached to his waist, with dark silver color. He really liked his hair and his eyes. They were something that made him „extra" and different on the first sight. As far as he knew, there was no one in the Leaf who had even similar eyes or hairs. And he doubted he would ever find anyone similar to him in the whole elemental continent. He wore simple shorts, short-sleeved t-shirt and cheap sneakers, all of it in black color.

He was waiting for the classes to end so he could „borrow" the textbooks and scrolls from one of the first years. But that wouldn't happen for quite some time. He started to think about his past to pass the time. As far as he remembered, everyone, aside from the wrinkly old monkey and few others, hated, loathed, despised and scorned him. His life was miserable until almost year ago. He lived in the orphanage where most of the kids were because of the beast he had sealed inside of him. The matrons were no exception, they lost their loved ones to his tenant after all. Or they just went with the crowd. And so he always got the shittiest things, from the shittiest room to shittiest food, and was always bullied. He still hated that place with passion. He even entertained himself with brooding how he would burn it to the grounds sometimes.

After three years of hell, where he was beaten and otherwise mistreated in the orphanage with the occasional beating courtesy of the villagers, both shinobi and civilian, he was thrown out. He was thrown out on the day he was born. On the day the Nine-Tailed Fox, one of the nine tailed beasts, attacked Leaf and destroyed almost half of it while taking away more than three quarters of ninjas present in village in that time and killing one fifth of the civilian population before the oh so great hero, the Fourth Hokage sealed it into him, his only son, sacrificing himself and his wife, the boy's mother using the Shinigami Sealing-Summoning Contract. He was never beaten that hard in any other day of his life. Stabbed, punched, burned, electrocuted... And the worst thing was that he was conscious through it all. The medics held him awake and healed him many times to ensure he was tortured for hours without dying or fainting from pain. After eight hours, they finally decided to end his life, the only thing he had. A ninja, whose whole family was killed by the fox, took out kunai and charged it with lightning chakra. He stabbed him in the gut. And they all left him in that small dark alley to die from blood loss and internal bleeding. But that never happened. That idiot unknowingly damaged the seal. And before it could repair itself, the fox managed to connect to him. After that, he was pulled into his mindscape and met the fox for the first time.

At first he was scared, but after few minutes, he started to trust the fox. It treated him better than 99% of the people in his village, so much for the beast controlled with insatiable bloodlust. He then talked with the fox whenever he could and they became good friends. The fox helped him really lot after that. It helped him convince the old fart to give him apartment and taught him many things about people and how to deal with them. This was happening in the time-span of two weeks. After that, the fox asked him if he wanted to know more about it. He was hesitant at first. Yes, they became good friends, but to be this familiar about two weeks? He voiced his doubts to the fox and it answered it was because he didn't really talk to anyone in almost century. So he decided to give it a try.

They talked for hours, starting with The Sage of the Six Paths and the recreation of moon and creation of the tailed beasts who were actually siblings. It continued with the life in old days, how people respected them at the beggining but slowly started to fear the for their power. How after some time they started to envy them their power and hated them because they couldn't have it. And after that, they naturally started to try and tame the beasts. That was good few hundred years ago and it was the start of the tailed beast hunt that was about 200 hundred years long. It stopped when the One Tailed Racoon-Dog was sealed into kettle by the monks that tried to protect him from one of the long lost samurai clans and the Seven Tails was accidentally destroyed. This forced the other beasts into hiding and they left their secured dens only in dire situations. However one man made the greatest mistake. In the time when fuinjutsu was far more advanced than in the time of the tailed beast hunt, he used his abilities and tamed all of the beast aside from the seven and one tails who were already sealed into hosts. And with blind trust, he gave them to some of the new shinobi villages.

This was the start of the period known as the Village wars. In this time, Ninja Villages were almost constantly in war with one or another. And the jinchuuriki, as the hosts were named, were used as the ultimate weapons of destruction. That led to deaths of many and destruction of several smaller villages such as Village Hidden behind Whirlpools.

They also talked about the fox. About it being controlled by Madara and fighting the First. How it was sealed into two hosts before him, but they never used its power or came to their mindscape. And after that he found out that the previous hosts were his relatives. One being distant cousin of his grandmother and the other his mother. He learned what happened during the week he was born. How the fox was stolen and controlled by the so called Madara, although the fox could tell it was someone else, but didn't know who. The fox rampaged through the village before his father came with his mother and him and sealed the fox inside of him.

But then came the biggest shock. Seeing as the seal was only starting to work properly, the fox was able to witness his fathers last words and shown him the memory. He remembered the words clearly: „Hiruzen (cough)... make...make sure... my son is seen... (cough, cough) as the hero... Not as the... (cough) beast he holds within..." After that his father started coughing violently and after few seconds died. The fox also shown him the memories it had about his first week of his life. 37 murder attempts, 103 attempts to cause irreversible injuries. And he was only week old at that time. He didn't know what happened the next weeks because the seal started working on 100% and the ability to remember everything he gained, thanks to the training the fox gave him, shown him only the memories after his third month. And it was probably good that way because quite big part of his memories would make most people puke. It was probably worst when he was in the hospital with all the drugs he could've been „accidentally" given or the scalpels that „accidentally" slipped from the doctor's hands and cut him.

However it also steeled him in his resolve to become ninja. Now more than ever, he needed to be and feel powerful. To be powerful so no one could harm him. To be powerful so no one would even try to harm. He didn't care if it was because of respect or fear. He just wanted all of the people that mistreated him to crawl to him and bow million times while begging for forgiveness. And after the betrayal of his parents. Of the so called genius, his father, he opted for the fear. Another reason for his opinion was the old monkey. He was loved and respected for what he did for the village and yet they betrayed him.

The council let him back to the position only after severly weakening his position by creating and passing several laws that moved most of power into its hands. Now that he thought about it, the council was maybe even more responsible for his hardships than his father by denying several laws that could prevent from the information about his tenant from leaking. The only law that passed was the one that stated it was forbidden to tell about it to anyone who was not more than 1,5 years old at that time. Even to tell him. And this was the true purpose of the law. In case the demon lost his memories, they shouldn't tell him because the demon needed to stay stupid. All of the kids knew what he housed because they parents or relatives or friends told them. They hated him with the same passion he hated them for their bigotry and stupidity.

He asked the fox to train him and it agreed. Although it didn't know anything about the human way of fighting, it taught him how to survive. How to hide, how to be quiet, how to steal, how to be resourceful... It also taught him how to control his mindscape, how to access all of his memories he had after the third month of his life, how to change it into something better than the sewer it was before. During his training, they became even closer than before. And the fox did what it didn't do ever before, it gave him it's name. Well, he gave him his name.

Kurama then revealed him another shocking thing. Apparently he was messing with his body and while giving him the sensory ability and better senses, it found out he had four bloodlines and what they did.

**_Flashback_ **

**_„_ ** **_Before we start the training, I´ll tell you everything I was able to find out about your Bloodlines, because using them to their full potential will give you edge against others. First, I´ll tell you about your Superior Body bloodline, as I dubbed it for now. It has two parts, first physical, second chakral. The physical enchantment of your body is to that extent, that your body has the healing factor makes you almost un-killable and in the eyes of others, immortal. Apparently, you can be killed only by slicing off your head , several stabs to your heart or by turning you to ash. Also, as you know, the brain cells do not replace themselves after the age of the body crosses 18 years – but yours will. Your body´s cells are immune to any outside intervention so no poison or illness will ever kill you._ **

**_Also your DNA has a defense mechanism that prevents any deformations and even mutations such as other than bright red or dark brown hair color and violet or neon green pupil-less eyes. But for some reason, this didn't happen, probably because of your father's genes. Your DNA also allows the cells to be duplicated „few" more times so you should actually live around 300 to 350 years. Also, when you work out, your muscles become denser, not bigger so you won´t end up looking like bodybuilder, but you will have lean and athletic body. Also, while using weights as the ones we saw in the army shop can hinder growth of the body of a child if they aren't used carefully before the 14-15th year of life, you can use them without limitations because your body will cope with it without problems._ **

**_For the second part, your chakra is far more denser than of any normal human, this makes it easy to manipulate and your chakra coils are able to hold more of it and are able to stretch themselves easier. Also it´s not leaving your body through tenketsu points. Mainly because you don´t have any tenketsu points, but you can force your chakra through your whole skin. This means your chakra control is kage level already and sensory ninjas can't sense you if you aren't using your chakra since it doesn't leak through your tenketsu. This part of your bloodline is also parental to another two of your bloodlines. The Chakra sealing, which allows you to make seals from your chakra instead of using ink and inducing it with chakra and also allows you to view the whole seal in your head, so you can study how it works and make an anti-seal to destroy it._** **_Second is the Chain Release, that allows you to make chains from your chakra._**

**_Your next bloodline is of elemental character. For now, I dubbed it Storm release because it's made of three elements present in storms: Lightning, Water and Wind. However this bloodline also gives you three other sub-elemental releases that are related to this bloodline. Ice release made of wind and water, Swift Release made of wind and lightning and the Beam Release made of water and lightning._ **

**_Storm release itself seems to be rather powerful. But it seems rather hard to control so you'll still have to train hard to master it. Even if it's in your blood. Also, all of the elements are present in the same amount in this bloodline release._ **

**_Ice release is the one that'll be easiest to master, not only because it's not hard to combine water with wind, but also because it's very well known and it shouldn't be problem to gain information about it. Again, same amount for both elements._ **

**_Swift Release...I don't have a clue as to what to do with it... It can't be used for standard ninjutsu because the lightning would be quickly destroyed by the wind without a medium like water in Storm release... I will try to come up with something but I promise nothing. I dubbed it swift release because both lightning and wind are sometimes used in metaphor related to speed. Both elements present in same amount._ **

**_Beam release is the hardest one to learn after the Storm Release because I never met someone who could do what you can with this release. I dubbed it Beam release after I played a bit with it because the configuration interested me. This is the only sub-element you have that doesn't have the same amount of the elements. It' actually composed by ¾ of lightning chakra and ¼ water chakra. When I played with it, I found it „slightly disappointing" when it was only like collaboration techniques at first. But then, when the bad results angered me, I pushed inside much more powerful lightning chakra and forced it to stay inside. And then it happened. It started to glow. The powerful lightning coursing the water heated it up and it started to evaporate. But I held it together and it started to glow even stronger. I carefully released the chakra holding it together on one end. The glowing chakra escaped through the hole in beautiful light blue beam that had enough power to burn through the wall of the house you made for yourself within your mindscape._ **

**_Oh, after that, I took the liberty to also give you my two chakra elements, Fire and Earth. You can't run around using no fire or earth techniques when you are the representative of the Great Fire Fox From The Hills. Now start your workout._ ** **_"_ **

**_End Flashback_ **

He was brought out of his musings as he heard the bell in the academy. It was signalizing the end of the afternoon classes. He just had to wait few more minutes. After five or so minutes, kids started to run or walk out of school. He was here yesterday when the school year started and he made sure to remember as much faces of the children as he could.

He watched the children go out of the school. Most of them went to their relatives or headed to the downtown to have some fun. He wasn't interested in those as it would be hard to steal anything from them. He waited for the group that was bound to come soon. And it did. The boy knew them all, he lived with them in the orphanage not even year ago after all. They started walking south and he stealthily mirrored their path. From the chats the academy students had in the orphanage when he was there, he knew they always stopped to relax in the park near the orphanage. And they did, after few more minutes of walking. All of the forty or so kids from orphanage threw their belongings at or near one of the benches carelessly. They probably thought no one would steal from orphans. And no one would, right? Err, no. The boy waited for the kids to run further away with their game of tag. He quickly came to the bench and took the bag of one of the first years. However any idea came to his mind. Why should he steal things several times if he could get them in one go? And they would probably got more cautious too. He quickly took three more bags and quickly left the park in the direction of his apartment.

It took him 10 minutes to get there. It was located in old rundown apartment building built about 50 years ago. It had brown, dirty color. The color of the roof was not recognizable because it was gone from the tiles for years. He entered the building and walked up the stairs to the third floor. He controlled the door if there was any clue if someone broke in when he was gone but the doors were in good condition. No one broke in for about three months. He guessed it was because of his skill to not bee seen and the people simply forgot about him after they didn't notice him on the streets for some time.

He entered the apartment and dropped the bags and slumped onto the couch to relax after the job well done. He looked over the walls, that once were white, but now held grayish tint after the years of usage. His apartment was rundown like the rest of the building but he could see it was actually pretty nice and somewhat expensive because of it's size few years back. It was made of one main bedroom, three smaller bedrooms for guests and kids, a kitchen, two bathrooms, dining room, living room and finally a balcony. All of it lacked furniture, actually the smaller bedrooms had no furniture at all. The main bedroom had one many years used king sized bed, one wardrobe and two smaller cabinets, the living room had only couch and small table, the dining room had only table for two and chairs even when it could actually have table for twelve people and chairs for them with no problem. The only fully equipped rooms were the bathrooms and kitchen. There were no carpets in the whole apartment, only hard wooden floor. All in all, the apartment needed some investments to make it better but it could still be worse.

He stood up. There was no point in wasting time. He took the bag of the first year and started rummaging through it. After few moments, he found what he was looking for. He took the notebook out of the bag and started to read though the notes in it. He soon found what he was looking for. However, he didn't find there any important information or announcements made by the teachers, just some notes from the classes. He then did the same with the second year's notes and again found nothing. He grunted in frustration and dug into the other two bags and read through the notes. Again, he found nothing important. He wanted to know if they would receive something useful through the years but apparently, they didn't.

‚Well, looks like aside from the education, they won't give you anything useful.' he thought disappointed.

During this last year, he was able to steal pretty good things. So far he had scroll for C-Rank technique **Wind Release: Great Breakthrough** , B-Rank **Earth Release: Mud Dragon Missile** and few pieces of equipment: Two Chunnin jackets in the standard green color, one black Jonin jacket, fifty meters of high quality rope, stack of 100 small explosive notes, 50 kunai of top notch quality, 100 shuriken of the same quality and 1 000 senbon, also top notch in quality. The list continued with ten pairs of new shinobi standard sandals, blue in color. He stole them although he wasn't going to use them. Ninja needed protective footwear and opened sandals weren't giving much protection. He also stole used ANBU armor and several books on politics and other things, aside from the ninja related books because they were under lockdown and only ninjas had access to them. He was only lucky he managed to stole the two ninujtsu scrolls because someone apparently forgot them under tree in one of the training grounds.

Aside from that, he managed to steal around 30 000 Ryo and expensive things such as jewelry with value around 200 000 Ryo, if what Kurama said was true. Of course he couldn't operate with it freely as it would be suspicious for orphan to have that much money and to sell the expensive things with such high value. So he just had the things hidden and could only wait for his ninja career to start. After that, he would take some missions that he could use as cover for the things he had.

For now, however he needed to train. He took one of the books from the first bag and started to read through it. It took him three hours to read it through and understand it. It was just the theory of chakra so he had no problem with it. He wanted to read another, but the noisy rumbling from his stomach stopped him. He walked to the kitchen and made some salad from the vegetables and cheese he stole earlier this day. While he could buy these things, as buying them wasn't forbidden for him, the only things shopkeepers would sell him were rotten and overpriced.

He ate the salad and then washed the dishes. Then, he returned back to the living room and started studying again.

**Month later, Fire Country, Near Ninja Academy of the Leaf, 2.10. 3039EE cca 2300hrs**

‚Kurama-sensei, are you awake?' The young boy asked through the mental connection with the fox.

The fox yawned and sleepily answered: **‚Now I am... What is it you need, Naruto-kit?'**

The boy, now identified as Naruto apologized for waking up his tenant and asked: ‚Well, seeing as I am here already for the blunt kunai and shuriken for training, I could as well steal something else. I plan to look for the books, that the teachers have for themselves and for things like pens and blank scrolls. I just wanted to know if I should look for anything else?'

The fox was silent for while before answering: **‚Blank tests... actually anything that catches your eyes... and I will stay awake and suggest few things you won't find interesting or notice.'**

The boy just nodded and walked to the front door. He took out bunch of keys he stole from the director yesterday. He tried few of them before he found the right one and unlocked the doors. Once inside, he closed and locked the doors. He looked around, not having problems thanks to his better senses. He quickly ran through the halls and tried to find the staffroom. He found it on the fourth and final floor. He unlocked the door and entered.

After about hour he left the staffroom and locked it. His backpack was now full of things. He got three blank scroll, one empty storage scroll, two books, one on the leadership and one with many tips how not to lose your cool when you are bullied by class full of kids. He also had around twenty pens and every type of test he could find. He then headed downstairs on the ground floor. He started walking through the halls and after few moments found what he was looking for. It were steel, vault like, door with steel wheel in the middle of it and with sign that read: Staff only!

He sighed when he noticed he was too short to open the doors. He left the backpack in front of the door and left to take a chair from the nearest classroom. After he had the chair in position, he unlocked the two locks at the side of the doors and the opened them with some difficulty, as the old wheel opening mechanism wasn't probably oiled in years. It revealed another stairs. He quickly ran down them and found himself in quite big storage under the academy. Using the information he gained from the papers in the staffroom, he quickly found where the blunt training weapons were found.

He took 30 kunai and 60 shuriken because his backpack couldn't store more. He sighed and was about to leave when his tenant stopped him.

**‚Wait kit, I think we could use this bunker-like storage hall for our training. You could access your chakra here for the first time, it's perfect place for it. No one would know you did it because no one would feel it through these meters thick walls of solid steel and high quality concrete.'**

Naruto nodded and sat cross-legged. He remembered what to do from the third year chakra textbook. He started meditating and quickly found his chakra. He actually smirked because this gave him even bigger edge against his peers. When he would enter the academy at eight, he would be far away from them in terms of knowledge and power. Well, he wanted to enter next year as an early student and to graduate after half of the year, which was the shortest time one had to spend in Academy before he or she could graduate. But he knew council would not allow him to enter earlier or to graduate earlier so he had to wait some more. Fortunately they couldn't ban him from attending the Academy absolutely as the Second made unbreakable law that stated every kid that wished to enter the Academy could.

He pulled on his chakra and played with it some more before cough in his mind reminded him where he was and what was he doing. He chuckled before apologizing.

**‚No problem kit, I know how you feel. Now, take out the storage scroll. Then take one of the kunai and place it at the storage scroll at the centre of the storage seal. Then place your hand over the kunai. Form a Ram seal and push small amount of your chakra from your hand through the kunai and into the seal while saying „Store".'**

‚No need to tell me that, I remember the procedure for storing things. I would've used storage scrolls long ago if I already had access to my chakra.' Naruto said and took out the scroll.

He placed all of the kunai in pile onto the storage seal and pushed the chakra trough the while saying: „Store!" To his joy, the kunai disappeared in puff of smoke. He repeated the process with the shuriken and was going to throw the scroll into the backpack when his sensei stopped him again.

**‚Actually, I think you could test your bloodline on the scroll. Just focus on the seal while you place your palm filled with chakra on it.'**

Naruto nodded and did it. He when he placed his hand on the seal, he felt a strange sensation in the back of his head before tons of text appeared in the thin air before him. He almost yelled out in surprise before he calmed down with the fox's help who explained to him that this was the composition of the seal and that only he could actually see it because it was the product of his mind. The fox also told him that he could bend the vision in front of him to his will. He tried to do it and after few minutes was able to shrink the text into something akin to scroll, just imaginary. It showed only thirty lines at the same time. He could only wonder how helpful would this be when he would study the seals of the likes of the one that held the Kurama inside of him. He then tried something else. He wanted to know how much space was inside of the storage seal. He thought about it and immediately the imaginary scroll disappeared and in its place was a cube with transparent walls. He could see the small shuriken and kunai inside at the floor. He then looked at the text beside the cube. It stated that the pocket dimension had actually eight cubical meters. Also, there was a list of things that were currently stored inside the scroll.

He cancelled the connection and quickly stored another 470 kunai and 940 shuriken. Although they were all dulled and used for training, they could still be sharpened and used in future. He just had to find someone who would be willing to do it for him. He then left the Academy, locking everything down so it looked like nothing happened.

**Next afternoon, Naruto's apartment, 3.10. 3039EE, 1530hrs**

Naruto was currently training inside his apartment. He had learned all of the theory previous month so now it was time to make it more practical. He trained physically each day starting from 0600hrs and ending at noon. After lunch, he trained chakra related things until 2000hrs. After that he would leave to go find and steal things he needed. That was the plan he made for this day and many others to come. He was currently doing the leaf floating exercise with twenty leafs on various places on his body that were spinning in different directions with different speeds. Kurama did not lie when he told him his bloodline gave him flawless chakra control. But he also told him he needed to do the chakra control exercises so he could find out what he could do with it and how.

He continued to do it for another half of a hour before he tried something else. He focused on the nearby scroll and molded his chakra with the help of the five needed handseals. After finishing them, he exclaimed: **„Ninja Art: Body Replacement Technique"** He disappeared in plume of smoke and appeared few meters farther, while the scroll was lying on the couch. He smiled and performed the technique several times before he came to realization he was doing it slowly. Although he could do the handseals at low-jonin speed, he still found it slow. With the speed of the fights, the performing of the replacement technique needed to be faster.

At first he decided to shorten the handseal sequence. But this proved to be harder even with his great chakra control. After mastering the justu with 4 seals, he tried to do it with three and so on, the technique getting harder with the shorter sequence. But he managed to do it without handseals at the end, but he still needed to announce the technique and this irked him slightly. He didn't want to tell his opponent what he was going to do so he decided to master it without handseals and exclaiming the name of the technique. He looked at the watches he stole on his morning run and which were now on his arm, they were nothing special, just simple black false leather strap and the actual watches were simple too, made of glazed steel and with simple dial made of black numbers. But they worked and that was what he needed. It was around 1950hrs so he decide to call it a stealing run so he could get things to eat.

**Two weeks later, Naruto's apartment, 17.10. 3039EE, 2230hrs**

Naruto jumped to his bed. He was tired after the whole day. He did his workout, then in the afternoon, he finally mastered the Transformation technique without seals or saying the name of the justu. Doing the technique without handseals and name was rather hard, he found that out quickly while he was trying to master the body replacement, and he was really happy he managed to do it tonight. He could now do all of the three academy ninjutsu without handseals, his shurikenjutsu was on low-chunin level with both kunai and shuriken, his speed, strength and agility on mid-genin with the Academy Taijutsu Style fully mastered. His chakra control was flawless and his chakra reserves were already low-jonin level. His proficiency in other skills taught in academy was top notch. He was pretty sure there wasn't anyone in the academy who could take him head on without at least getting some injuries. However, he wasn't stupid enough to believe there wasn't anyone stronger in the academy though. He was pretty sure the clan members could give him a run for his money. While he knew everything the academy could teach anyone, he wanted to prove himself against his peers. He wanted to show people the first glimpses of his power so they would finally let him be human again and not some rat that had to hide in its sewer and only leave it during night to steal something so it wouldn't starve to death.


	2. Chapter II: Knowledge is Power

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, please share your personal views with me.

**Next day, Near the Central Library of the Leaf, 18.10. 3039EE, 1030 hrs**

Naruto was observing the library for quite some time now, he made sure to stop here after every morning run and tried to find out a way to get in. He couldn't go as himself because they would throw him out and it would make the villagers remember him again. And he sure as hell wasn't going to make his life miserable again. He soon found out it would be easy to get into the civilian part, simple transformation would do. Even to the ninja academy section, as the guard was always half asleep and wouldn't even want his student id. And even if he did, Naruto could just use the form of one of the Academy students he robed along with their id.

But he knew the guards at the Genin/Chunnin/Jonin sections would not fall for such trick, so he needed to devise a plan to get around them. For now, however, he had to work with what he had. He hid in small alley and changed into a kid he saw earlier. It was civilian boy, around 12 years old. He had round face, black eyes and short messy grey hair. He wore simple white hoodie, black pants and red sneakers. He entered the library and headed to the section with cooking books. He remembered few of them. After that, he left and entered the back alley again. He transformed into the third year student with the attire the civilian boy had, he just reversed the colors of the hoodie and the sneakers meaning the hoodie was now red and the sneakers white. As for looks, he had short spiky black hair, emerald green eyes and long scar on his left cheek.

He entered the library again and now headed to the Ninja Academy section. He hoped there were more things at academy level than those the academy taught nowadays. And he was happy to find out there indeed were things they didn't teach these days, but were still academy level. He found several interesting books and scrolls and immediately remembered several of them: Introduction to the noble Art of Seals, Fuinjutsu Theory: Beginner I & II, Introduction to Medical Arts, Poisons and Antidotes I, Combat Medicine: Beginner, Combat Surgery I, Genjutsu theory and practical use I and finally: Guide to shurikenjutsu that contained few things like simple strategies for shurikenjustu and similar things. But there was another thing inside that caught his attention. The book also taught how to throw senbon along with spots where to hit. He thought senbon were only usable when you had extensive knowledge of anatomy. But that seemed like load of bullshit now. The book had a picture of human body with several marked spots. Each marked spot had number. Beside the picture was list of the spots with their number and simple explanation on what would happen if you hit them properly. Of course you wouldn't be as good as the people for whom was anatomy second nature, but you still would be able to do great damage without really needing to study it.

Not that Naruto didn't plan to learn the anatomy, he just knew that would take more than year to completely get it right and he really didn't want to wait that much before he could use the senbon. He liked the senbon more than kunai or shuriken. They were the weapon of true assassin. Small, so you could get them anywhere, silent, so no one knew who actually did it if they didn't see him, available in great amount and weren't actually meant to be weapons. Every medic, even the civilian ones, had them. Plus many shamans and healers used them. They were medical tools that could kill, just like scalpels, but were safer to use because of the range.

He left the library around 1330hrs and decided to go get some food. He dropped the transformation in one of the smaller and deserted alleys and headed to the downtown. There, in one of the smaller shopping streets, was a small ramen stand. It was one of the only three places in the city where they would serve him, the second being a dango stand between clan and shinobi district and the third was a bar in the red light district. The owner of this stand never hated him and treated him like any normal person. He wasn't there in long time and decided to stop by for a bowl or two and little chat. He arrived to his destination after few minutes of walking through the sparingly used alleys and streets. However, he didn't enter from the front. If anyone knew the old man served the demon, he would be ruined. He knocked on the back door. After few moments, they were opened by around ten years old brunette with hazel eyes. When she saw him, she didn't say anything just hugged him tightly in sisterly way. After few moments she let him go.

„Where you were all the time, huh?" she asked.

Naruto chuckled nervously before answering. „You know, the usual, people to see-" but didn't get to complete the sentence because of interruption made by man in his late thirties

„What did you stole this time?"

The boy chuckled nervously again: „Well, just the usual – food, some money... " he took a deep breath to calm himself down before mumbling something under his breath.

However, the man heard it „Thousand shuriken? Not to mention I didn't understand the other things. You know I don't care if you ‚borrow' money, food and such things from the people who made your life hell. But stealing weapons could get you into prison... What else did you steal?"

Naruto told not only told him what he „borrowed" but what he did with it. The chief already knew about the fox and everything else he did before. He was the closest thing Naruto had to father and he trusted the man with everything. And Teuchi knew this and never betrayed the boy, not even to the Hokage who discussed the life of the boy with him several times. After the explanation was done, Teuchi sighed. There was nothing else he could do.

„Just be careful and don't hurt yourself... Because if you do, I will hurt you ten times more, is that clear?"

Naruto just chuckled nervously... again. It was becoming a habit for him to chuckle nervously when he was talking with the ramen chef about his exploits. The man sighed again. It was becoming his habit to sigh whenever he asked Naruto about his life. After that, they started to talk about more pleasant things while Naruto ate his meal and Teuchi left few times to serve his customers. When he finally said goodbye, he headed back to the library to get the knowledge he needed. Because knowledge was power. And he needed and wanted power. For now, gaining power was the sole purpose of his life.

**Two months later, near the Library, 18.12. 3039EE, 2300hrs**

For the two months, Naruto trained restlessly. He learned all he could from the books he got before his lunch in Ichiraku plus another books: Fuinjutsu Theory: Beginner III, Basics of Anatomy I & II, Poisons and Antidotes II, Survival in War: 100 tips how to stay alive out there!.

From the Fuinjutsu books, he learned everything about the basics of sealing, from the medical books everything about the most common poisons and toxins and about antidotes, basics of combat medicine and anatomy. The book on shurikenjutsu was the best in Naruto's opinion. He learned how to throw senbon in record time and was now rather proficient with it, if one trusted the chart in the book, he was at low-chunin level. His physical abilities rose from mid-genin to high-genin level. His chakra reserves also rose by some, but still remained in the same category. His arsenal of ninjutsu didn't become bigger, he still had only the three academy techniques and he didn't want to learn the techniques from the scrolls he stole before he at least tried the elemental chakra control exercises. The book on the survival was rather good too, much better than the one used in academy. But much more complicated, which he guessed was the reason it wasn't used anymore.

However, he finally found a way into the genin and portion of the library. Actually he found a way into all of the shinobi parts. After hours of boring work, one of the chunnins on guard duty there usually went out to buy sake and then they drank it in the Academy section which was in front of the other shinobi section. He just had to wait for them to get drunk and enter through the window in the jonin part of the library. The only problem was the alarm seal on the windows. But he found a way to break it after three weeks when he rocked his brain in his mindscape for hours when the rest of his body rested.

He wasn't going to break it the standard way because he lacked the knowledge about the alarm seals. He would do different thing. Just overload it with demonic chakra. The alarm seal had several lines of defense that would alert the ninjas inside if anyone decided to break in or decided to destroy the seal and made mistake. Seeing how complicated the seal was, only the best seal master would be able to get rid of it unnoticed. But the chakra of tailed beasts was different than that of a human. It's corrosive effects would destroy the seal before it could alert anyone. The best thing was that even while he was using the demonic chakra, he only had to use small amount and thus no one would really notice.

He quickly ran to the last window and used his sealing bloodline. But now instead of using his own chakra, he used Kurama's. The effect was immediate as he didn't even feel the small tug in the back of his head. The seal glowed faint red color for few moments before it evaporated. He opened the window and got in. He quickly ran through the jonin and chunnin section knowing, that while he wanted to read those books, without the basics he would get in the genin part of library, they were all useless.

He entered the genin section and stopped for while. Using his sensory ability, he confirmed the guards indeed were in the academy part. Nodding to himself, he started to go through the books there. Soon he had remembered all the books he or Kurama found interesting: Fuinjutsu Theory: Intermediate I, II & III, Poisons and Antidotes III, Combat Medicine: Intermediate, Combat Surgery II, Human Anatomy: Beginner, Genjutsu theory and practical use II & III, Practical Fuinjutsu: Beginner I & II, Ninja Art: Body Flicker Technique, Chakra Exercises: Genin level, few books on tactics and strategy and other things about ninja world, including several accurate books about history, that were much better than the ones used in academy or books on the emotions and ways to control them. After that, he left the same way he came. He even reapplied the alarm seal and set it back into work, seeing as he already copied it with his bloodline and while he didn't understand it fully, he could still make it and even knew how to link it to other seals.

After that, he quickly left the area. He used the shady back alleys and less used streets to get home. Once there, he just threw himself on the bed and drifted to sleep. Well, his body did, his consciousness was in the mindscape reading through the books he remembered.

**Two months later, Village Hidden in Leafs, 18.2. 3040EE, 0630hrs**

Naruto was currently on his morning run around the village. While he was running, he was mentally preparing for a little trip to chunnin section of the library, that was going to take place tonight. He was also thinking about what he learned from the books. The fuinjutsu theory books were great and helped him lot with understanding the art of fuinjutsu, the books on practical use were mainly focused on explaining the need for excellent calligraphy and such things, and while Naruto didn't need it, he still learned it. Poison and Antidotes III, the last books in the series, was filled with information about common venoms and antidotes for them. The medic books were great too. However, the genjustu books were even better. He now knew how to better mask his transformation technique from the second book and learned two techniques from the third.

The first was **False Vision: False Handseals Technique**. This technique was an E-Rank Genjutsu. As the name said, it created false handseals to prevent the enemy of the user from correctly guessing the jutsu he was going to use. It required only two handseals: Ram and Snake. It was really easy to master, even without handseals and the name. It also had a small chakra cost, so miniscule the used chakra was instantly regenerated back. At least for him, thanks to his bloodline.

The second was **Eye Illusion: Eye Stab Technique.** This technique was a D-Rank Genjutsu. It required the eye contact. Once the fighters had it, the opponent of the user could feel many things depending on the distance. It was the simple itching from about twenty meters to stabbing pain in less than meter. It required three handseals: Ram, Snake and Rat. It was also easy to fully master, however not as easy as the false handseals or the ninja academy techniques, but he had lots of fun with the technique while mastering and was sure many civilian villagers wouldn't forget the pain in their eyes for quite some time. The technique required very low amount of chakra to be activated and kept running.

He also mastered the **Ninja Art: Body Flicker Technique** , read through the history books while finding several interesting things and learned to control his emotions to an extent where he looked like moving corpse where his face displayed nothing and his eyes were dull and lifeless and he was able to control his emotions with no problems at all. He also gave attention to the tactics and strategy books and from those learned about the teamwork and how important it could become. While he wanted to be strong enough to destroy everyone in his way, he knew that kind of power would come with years. And before it came, he would be often on missions with teammates, thus he needed to know how to work with them and he learned it from those books.

He also had no problem with the chakra control exercises, the solid surface walking and the liquid surface walking, and also found a way to make them harder by adding boulders. The exercise the contained him holding a boulder at the soles of his feet while also walking on the tree/water. He also found that these two techniques helped him a lot with his chakra reserves that were now mid-jonin. He was thrown out of his thoughts when he noticed he was only few meters from his apartment.

**Three months later, Village Hidden in Leafs, 18.5. 3040EE, 0630hrs**

Naruto was again on his morning run and again thought about his progress with the ninja arts. Three months ago, he stole many books. Twenty on different things like tactics, strategy or politics, Fuinjutsu Theory: Intermediate IV, V, VI and VII, Practical Fuinjutsu: Beginner III,IV and V, Combat Medicine: Advanced and Master, Combat Surgery III and IV, Human Anatomy: Intermediate and Advanced, Genjutsu theory and practical use III, IV and V, Natural Element Theory, Elemental Chakra Control Exercises: Beginner and Intermediate, Introduction to Kenjutsu, Kenjustu Theory: Beginner and Intermediate, a scroll on kenjutsu style called Invisible style and a scroll about Taijutsu style called Fast fist.

The books about the strategy were good, they taught him more about teamwork and even about leadership, seeing as chunnins were sometimes in charge of genins, and basics about tactics behind divisions and armies, seeing as chunnins were the major part of the ninja forces and thus the armies.

He finished the intermediate fuinjutsu theory books and the beginner practical fuinjutsu , the last three books finishing with much more vigor because of their content. From them, he learned how to do different explosive notes and seals.

He also finished the combat medicine and combat surgery series. Both series were practically the same as the combat medics in standard militia and samurai armies were taught. The knowledge was enough for those armies and even when the injuries were made by genin level ninja, but everything above needed the use of chakra medical techniques or immediate hospitalization. The human anatomy book was great in his opinion.

The natural element theory scroll held much better explanation of the natural elements than the academy books had and the scrolls on the elemental control were priceless. They taught him how to use the elemental chakra he needed for the two techniques he stole. He mastered the leaf exercise with no problem and the hand coating exercise wasn't that hard too. He also started on the two techniques he found before. He could now do the **Wind Release: Great Breakthrough** with only two, instead of the original five, handseals and perform the **Earth Release: Mud Dragon Missile,** however, he still had to use all of the handseals and could do just two in one hour because the technique had big chakra price.

From the Genjutsu, aside from strategies and such things, he learned another three techniques.

First was **False Noise: Buzzing Sound.** This simple genjutsu caused the enemy to hear a buzzing sound in his ears. It was D-Rank and Naruto again tested it on civilian villagers. The chakra price was quite low, with his reserves, he could have it activated for several hours. The handseals were Ram, Bird and Dog. It's downside was short range, only around 5-7 metres. The chakra consumption was really low though.

Second was **Eye Illusion: Chill.** An easy, D-Rank, Genjutsu that sends chill down ones spine if he looks in the users eyes. Naruto tested it on villagers again. This time, he stood in front of one restaurant transformed into guard and glared on everyone. Those who looked him straight into eyes felt the chill run down their spine and since all of them were civilians, most of those affected turned and left. The jutsu had four handseals: Ram, Ox, Snake and Bird. The chakra cost was low, as it was with all of the genjutsu he knew so far.

The third and last technique was **False Vision: Drowning in Worms.** The user made their target or targets see large amount of white and fat worms coming at them and crawling at their body and then going inside their bodies through any visible hole. He tested this rather foul technique on the academy students. He chose third years for it and was successful. Half of the class puked at the first sight of the worms coming from everywhere, while quarter started to panic and scream hysterically and the last quarter was unconscious. The genjutsu, however, was used only on students and it took the chunnin teacher minute or two to figure out what happened. At that time, all of the students were already unconscious, the technique canceled and Naruto long gone. The technique was D-Rank, just like the others. And while it required slightly more chakra to make it, it was still low compared to the Demonic Illusion techniques. And thanks to its foulness, it could probably knock out even inexperienced chunnin or maybe even jonin. The technique had four handseals: Ram, Boar, Snake, Rat.

The kenjutsu books were also great, although the swords weren't really weapons for assassins, he could see himself carrying one for straight fight. That was the reason why he already started reading the katas of the Invisible Style and practicing with wooden training sword he stole. He liked the style, it was based on speed. As the name hinted, to fully master the style, you needed to move the sword fast enough to become invisible to the enemy, move the sword so fast they wouldn't be able to follow it's movement. Also, this style was different from most of the kenjutsu styles by using mainly stabs, not slashes. He already mastered all of the beginner katas and was going to learn all of the intermediate and above as soon as he got the scroll from the jonin section of the library.

His new taijutsu was also based on speed, as the name hinted again. Aside from the speed, it was built on precise strikes and dodging instead of brute attacks and blocking. He also mastered all of the beginner katas and also would continue learn them when he managed to get the info on the remaining katas

**Half of Year later, Village Hidden in Leafs, Training Ground C-23, 22.11. 3040EE, cca 2130hrs**

If any chunnin went to train to the training ground 23 of the chunnin training grounds and had his chakra absolutely suppressed, he would find someone else there. By the height, it was obviously a boy not older than six or seven. He wore a black bandana with blank metal plate in front. The bandana held the boys strange silvery hair that reached to his waist. The only thing visible on his face were his sapphire colored eyes and bit of skin around them, as the rest was covered by his hair and black facemask that reached from his neck up to half of his face. He wore a small copy of standard jonin flack jacket of leaf in black color and without the red swirl on the back. Instead, kanji for Storm in light blue color was there, surrounded by silver and sapphire circles, the silver being the smaller one and the blue obviously the larger. Under the flak jacket was thick long-sleeved black t-shirt. He also had black leather gloves. His legs were covered by black ANBU style pants with many pockets that were mainly filled with scrolls. His feet were encased in black army boots with steel tips.

Although nobody could see it, he was smirking victoriously. He finally managed to master his last technique without shouting out the name and doing handseals. He grew very strong in the last two years and few days. The jonin library, while not holding any powerful techniques or similar things, taught him many things in all of the aspects of ninjas life and career. He stole many books from there: Fuinjtsu Theory: Advanced I to V, Fuinjutsu Theory: Master I to IX, Practical Fuinjutsu: Intermediate I to V, Advanced I to IV, Master I to XII, Chakra Combat Medicine: Beginner to Master, Chakra Combat Surgery I to IV, Human Anatomy: Master, Genjutsu theory and practical use VI to VIII, Chakra Control Exercises: Jonin Level, Advanced elemental exercises, Kenjutsu Theory: Advanced and Master and several books on tactics & strategy, history, politics and such.

When it came to Ninjutsu, he had no problem with any of the chakra control exercises, be it normal or elemental. The kunai spinning exercise was just upgraded version of the leaf floating exercise, but the elemental exercises such as the waterfall splitting or water statue making were bit harder. However he mastered them nonetheless. His arsenal of ninjutsu was far above his age group. Even those like Uchiha Itachi and Hatake Kakashi didn't know anything else than the academy three in his years.

His arsenal was made of: **Earth Release: Mud Dragon Missile (High B-Rank), Wind Release: Great Breakthrough (Mid-C Rank), Water Release: Water Clone Technique (Mid C-Rank), Ninja Art: Body Flicker Technique (High D-Rank)** and the academy three although he could now use the transformation more subtly and with several layers.

He also created several techniques himself: **Wind Release: Clone Technique (Mid D-Rank)** – a standard clone illusion but filled with wind chakra, when someone went through it, he received few gashes or bruises depending on how was the wind chakra molded, if it was molded into fast wind knives or air with high pressure. When the technique was dispelled, the same would happen to those unfortunate enough to stand nearby. However the range was only about 1,5 meter. The technique consumed more chakra than the standard clone, but much less than solid clone techniques.

**Ninja Art: Solid Transformation (Low B-Rank)** – a technique based on the standard transformation, however solid. This technique required extensive knowledge on anatomy of the thing you were transforming into. Only transformation into living things was possible as the transformation into something inanimate would kill the user instantly. The only, but big, downside of the technique was the great chakra consumption. Even with mid-jonin reserves, he wasn't able to keep it running for more than five minutes.

**Ice Release: Spear (Low C-Rank) and Ice Release: Spears (Low B-Rank)** – The first technique created only one spear made of ice that erupted from the ground. The second obviously created more of them. The difference was also in the handseals. Chakra price for both was pretty average for C and B Rank techniques respectively.

**Beam Release: Hyper Beam (High A-Rank)** – His so far most powerful technique, also the hardest to master. This technique required great control over its sub-element because if the user didn't have it, he'd get himself killed easily. It's because this techniques fires rather powerful beam out of their mouth. Even the smallest mistake could lead to the evaporation of the user's brain instead of the opponent. This was also the technique he finally mastered today. The chakra consumption was almost at Low S-Rank.

For the genjutsu, he didn't learn any new because the books in the library didn't have any inside and instead focused on the multilayered casting and how to make genjutsu more subtle and more resilient.

As for his taijutsu and kenjutsu, they were harder to master than he thought at first. However, he was still learning them at excellent pace, having already mastered all of the Intermediate katas and being halfway through the Advanced ones.

Fuinjutsu was other story entirely. He knew and could do any normal type of seal with many tweaks and upgrades and even started to make his own although he was only at beginning with them. With his knowledge, there was no one better with seals than him in the whole Fire Country aside from the Jirayia of the Sannin and the old monkey. But that was only because of their experience. With his talent, he would surpass them in few years.

His skills as medic also grew. He could now use several medic techniques he learned from the Chakra Combat Medicine and Chakra Combat Surgery: **Medical Art: Diagnostic Technique (Low C-Rank),** **Medical Art: Chakra Transfer Technique (High C-Rank), Medical Art: Painkiller Technique (Low B-Rank), Medical Art: Healing Hands Technique (High B-Rank), Medical Art: Anesthetic Technique (Low B-Rank), Medical Art: Stitching Technique (Mid B-Rank)** and the last one was **Medical Art: Chakra Scalpel (Mid A-Rank).**

As for his other skills, he didn't progress at all, instead opting to train in the things above and holding them on the same level.

He left the training ground satisfied and headed to the bar in the red light district. His destination was the bar he knew he could visit, The Love Den. Well, it wasn't entirely a bar, maybe it also had striptease... Well maybe it was brothel, but it was one of the three places where they accepted him as human being. He wasn't going there for pleasure, he was six after all. He was going there for work.

He needed the experience with killing and why not get paid for doing so? Ninja did it all the time and the sooner he started with it, the better. He thought about it for a little while. He would probably have to kill some lowly shit who hurt the girls working there, so it wasn't even that immoral. Not that he cared about morals after what happened to him in his life.

But he soon found out it was not meant to be. As he was walking through a deserted streets, he noticed several voices talking from one of the side alleys. This wouldn't be all that interesting if the voices weren't accompanied by muffled screams. He quickly changed his path and entered the shadowy alley. With his enchanced eyes, he saw three males, by the looks some lowly „gangstas" who were beating and trying to rape little girl. This was interesting. While the Leaf had its criminals, things like rape almost never happened because ANBU quickly heard the sounds and came to rescue.

But he knew this wasn't going to happen this time as his sensory skills told him there was no ANBU around. And seeing as there were always ANBU patrols inside all of the districts all the time, this could mean only one thing. This girl was an outcast, just like he was. She was saved by Hokage, he was sure about that, but the council, or someone on the council or with contacts in the council wanted her dead. And what was better than an unfortunate occurrence?

Well, maybe he could do his first three kills for free. He moved to another position that would be better for attack. As he was going to jump at the offenders, the little girl turned her head and looked at him. And he immediately understood why she was left to die.

She was white. Absolutely white, her hair, her skin... her pupils and irises. He didn't hesitate and jumped at the three men, killing the first instantly by punch to his neck, creating a sickening crunch. Before the other could even take in what happened, he punched one into his gut with enough force to knock him out, but he wasn't finished with him. He delivered a vicious kick to his head, again creating the sickening crunch. The last man blinked few times before his brain worked out what happened. He released a vicious roar of anger and reached to his pocket for knife. This proved to be mistake, as with his one hand in pocket and one at his side, he was completely open for attack.

The blonde saw this and quickly ran at his opponent and jumped in front of him so he could hit him in the face. He released a powerful punch to the cheek of the wannabe rapist and sent him to the ground. The man spit blood and few of his teeth out before grumbling something through his broken jaw and tried to stand up. But before he could, his right eye and the thin part of skull behind it were pierced by his own knife, that fell from his pocket when he was falling. His, now lifeless, body hit the ground again with barely audible thump.

He turned and looked at the now unconscious girl. He walked to her and gently picked her up. Holding her bridal style, he took off to the roofs, powering his sensory abilities with excess chakra to warn him from any patrols around. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop he reached his apartment building. He made a water clone to unlock the door and quickly took the girl to the bedroom. He gently laid her down on the bed and started running a diagnostic technique.

What he found wasn't as bad as he feared it would be. The attackers obviously didn't get far because he arrived before they could. She had just few bruises, that were easily healed by the healing hands technique. She probably passed out from fear of the rapists just when he was attacking them first. Or maybe she thought he would get rid of them and have her for himself. But that didn't matter now. She was safe. She didn't have to suffer anymore.

He then looked at her eyes. The pupil of both of the eyes was white and barely visible and so was the iris. Just faint outline defined them. He activated the diagnostic technique again and now focused solely on the eyes. Just as he thought, they weren't normal eyes. They had chakra signature and only dojutsu had chakra signature of their own. However, this one was almost unnoticeable, signalizing that it hadn't been awakened yet. However, he didn't needed to run a DNA test to figure out what dojutsu it was.

‚Byakugan, huh? I wonder what's the story of her life. I don't think they would leave the girl to rot on the streets. Hyugas, well the main family, are colder than me, but still, I can't imagine them doing this to one of their own. Besides, they don't care about the looks, just about the eyes. And she has them. So why?'

He noticed the girl was starting to stir. He was thinking what to do. Should he let her wake up and ask her about her life or use the anesthetic technique and ask her tomorrow? He decided for the later. It would help her to deal with the trauma of almost being sexually active at three. He used the technique and then carried the little girl to his apartment.

**Next morning, Naruto's apartment, 23.11. 3040EE, 0830hrs**

The small girl started to stir in the bed. It took her few moments to get awake and even then, she wanted to just fall back asleep. She never slept in so good bed. Considering the state of the old king sized bed, she probably never slept in any real bed. But then it hit her. This wasn't orphanage where she was supposed to be. The memories of the previous night started to get back.

They went outside for a little walk. But then she got lost. She didn't know how. She just walked at the end of the crowd of the kids when the world suddenly started spin around. She had to close her eyes to regain balance and when she opened them, everyone was gone. She then wandered the streets and tried to find someone who would take her back to orphanage. After some time, he met three men who said they would take her there and said that they would have some fun time on the way. But when they started to walk through one of the dark alleys, they started to harm her.

Then one hit her on the face and her head hit the pavement. The world started to fade away and the last thing she saw was a dark figure jumping at one of the men. The she fell unconscious, although she didn't know what unconscious was. She thought she fell asleep from the pain and slept until the morning came. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was in rundown room, but not as far rundown as her room in the orphanage was. She noticed that there was a tray beside the bed. On it was a glass of juice and a slice of bread with butter and ham.

She quickly ate it and drank the juice. After that, she went to explore. She was running around the apartment for quite some time when her stomach started rumbling. She went to the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets she could reach. But there was no food, just kitchen tools. She looked over and noticed the fridge. But the handle wasn't in her reach. So she decided to drag in one of the chairs that were in dining room. After some time, she successfully managed to do it. She climbed the chair and the opened the fridge. However, she did it much faster than she intended because she thought it would be harder. The speed was enough to make one of the eggs get out of one of the shelves and fall right onto her head. It broke and covered her head in its insides. This released a chuckle from someone she didn't notice was here. However, what she could tell it was a kid. So she turned and saw a young boy dressed in black clothes and with most of his face cowered by mask. He had a pale skin, although not as pale as she had, blue eyes and dark silver hair.

He chuckled again before saying: „Hey there. I see you feel better than yesterday..."


	3. Chapter III:Sharingans and Sisters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your opinion is always welcome.

**Between 23.11. 3040EE and 23.3. 3041EE**

Later that day, the little girl told him everything about her life. She was three years old, born on 1. September and said her name was Akiko. She didn't have any surname. She wasn't born in Leaf, but in nearby town called Okaya, that was located about 40 kilometers to the north from the Leaf. She lived there in orphanage and the caretakers never answered questions about her parents. Her life there resembled the one Naruto had. Because of her appearance, she was bullied. She lived there until two weeks after her birthday. At that time, Jonin of Leaf found her being bullied on the playground near the orphanage and took her to the orphanage in the Leaf, apparently hoping she would have better life. However he was wrong because someone wanted her dead. The girl was obvious to this, but Naruto was sure someone wanted to kill the little girl. He didn't know who, but the reason was as clear as day. Her eyes. He only hoped he would be able to hide her from them and to train her to defend herself if it was needed.

And so he started training her in the ninja arts. He had, however, used different training type. He had to train her how to suppress her chakra and for that, she had to learn how to use it. And he was now assured she was a descendant of Hyuga. She caught up on the chakra control exercises with great ease and in the January, she was done with them. He then started to teach her about the tenketsu points and how to control them, things he didn't need to know, but learned them anyway because of his pupil. Gaining complete control over the tenketsu took her only week and with that done, she was able to suppress her chakra and he started to train her in stealth and thievery. She was very talented in it and starting from the middle of the March, she was the one getting them food.

As for the other training, she didn't do much. Mostly physical training aimed at speed, agility and stamina. Naruto didn't want to teach her the other stuff before she was proficient enough in her stealth skills to get her own weapons or scrolls just like he did before robbing the academy and the library. After that, he would start to train her on the Academy stuff, then after she mastered it, with the Genin level things and so on...

But if Naruto had to say the truth about living with the girl and training her, he would say he was greatly annoyed. She was too childish for his taste and he even sometimes wondered if it would be easier if let the rapist destroy this childishness that night and then saved her. But after some time, he grew attached to the girl and came to love her as younger sister. When he then remembered how he thought about leaving her to be raped so it would be easier, he couldn't help but to smack himself. He thought he was idiot the first two weeks, because he blamed her for being child. But after some time, he realized this was the childishness every child should have before they were thrown to the adult life, so they could have at least some innocence. He may've been an exception, but that was no reason for him to want others to be like him.

Kurama, on the other hand, was filled with joy. He managed to get rid of small amount of hatred the boy held, along with the few people who liked the boy (although they didn't know it), but this girl managed to absolutely relieve him from the curse of hatred. He feared the kid would hate all people without actually getting to know them, but now, thanks to the little girl, he knew that wouldn't happen. Of course, he couldn't care less about the ones that wronged the boy. As far as he didn't kill the innocent, he could burn the village to the ground and Kurama wouldn't even bat an eye leash.

As for Naruto's training, he focused mainly on his physical skills, that were neglected over the previous months when he was mastering the things from the library. However, now he was training in them as much as he could. He also mastered the Advanced katas of his Taijutsu and Kenjutsu styles and was now done with quarter of the Master level. However the styles were far from mastered seeing as he needed to reach at least Low-Mid Kage level speed to use them to their full potential. That was the reason why those styles were rotting in the library. Most of the ninjas never reached that level of speed, aside from their dreams.

However, he also spent some time developing his own gravity seals, because there weren't any in the fuinjutsu books, only description and basics of their working. He managed to make them at the end of January and applied them on his body. In the middle of March, his Gravity seals were set on two times stronger gravity.

He also managed to create **Fire Release: Clone Technique**. This technique was the same as the wind clone, but obviously used fire instead of wind so the one who flew through the clone or tried to attack him in taijutsu . He also managed to create explosive versions by accident. When he was perfecting the technique, Akiko distracted him and he added another ram seal to the handseal sequence and pushed into it more chakra than he intended to do. He jumped back, expecting the technique to blow up because of this, but to his surprise, the clone was flawless. And so he dispelled him. To his joy, he found an answer to the question: „How to make the explosive range of my clones bigger?" when the clone exploded into soaring flames with ten meters wide range. He then mastered the techniques and made the wind explosive version and standard explosive version that exploded in burst of chakra, much like the most simplest explosive notes did. While the explosive force of the non-elemental clone wasn't as powerful as the elemental one had, it was much easier to create the clone and also cost less chakra.

In the 23.3., he used the charts in the books he had or remembered and with Kurama's help, he evaluated his skills:

Fightning:

\- Taijutsu: High C-Rank (because: not mastered style, lacking the physical abilities to use it on 100%)

\- Ninjutsu: High C-Rank (lacking knowledge of techniques)

\- Genjutsu: Low C-Rank (lacking knowledge of techniques, mainly higher ranking)

\- Kenjutsu: High C-Rank (same as taijutsu)

\- Shurikenjutsu: High B-Rank (lacking physical abilities to use it at 100%)

Suplementary:

\- Fuinjutsu: Low A-Rank (lack of knowledge and experience in seal making and crafting)

\- Medical abilities: Low A-Rank (lack of experience and knowledge of more complicated techniques aside from chakra scalpels)

\- Stealth: Mid S-Rank (thanks to his bloodline and skill, however still lacks experience with retreating from battle with using these skills)

\- Interrogation and Torture: Low C-Rank (lacks experience, never interrogated or tortured anyone)

\- Strategy and Planning: High A-Rank (lacks experience in combat planning)

Chakra:

\- Chakra reserves: Mid A-Rank

\- Chakra control: SS-Rank (bloodline)

\- Elemental affinities: All, SS-Rank control (bloodline)

\- Sub-elemental affinities: Storm, Ice, Swift, Beam – SS-Rank control (bloodline)

Physical and mental abilities:

Physical:

\- Speed: Mid C-Rank

\- Agility: Mid C-Rank

\- Strength: Mid C-Rank

\- Endurance: SS-Rank (bloodline)

\- Stamina: High A-Rank (bloodline, jinchuuriki)

Mental:

\- Intelligence: High S-Rank

\- Mental Endurance: High S-Rank (thanks to his „childhood")

\- Knowledge: Mid C-Rank

His overall skill was around High Chunnin level, without the skills that were enchanced by his bloodline. He also knew he had to do lot of work before reaching the low Jonin level. And he wanted to reach it before he actually entered the Academy and to reach mid jonin level at the end. He knew it would be lot harder than being chunnin level. The chunnin level skills were actually easy if compared to jonin level skills. That was also the reason why most of the ninjas, around 70%, never advanced further than to the rank of chunnin. He would be really lucky if he managed to be low jonin by then, as he might be High C-Rank overall, but some of his skills were still on lower levels and he also lacked the experience.

**Village Hidden in Leafs, Hokage Office, 23.3. 3041EE, 0830hrs**

The old Hokage was currently trying to fight a headache by massaging his temples, but it wasn't helping. From the morning report he got from one of the ANBU, Weasel, he found out that the Uchiha clan was indeed planning a coup d'etat. They were preparing for it for quite some time, three years actually. They gathered enough support in the Daimyio's court, stocked a great amount of weapons and also gained a support cliques in the civilian council and smaller clan council. This was getting out of hand. He really wanted to appease the Uchihas, but the option was gone now. There wasn't anything he could do to prevent a bloodshed. He could just make the losses smaller. The Uchiha clan will have to disappear or at least those who were behind this idiotic rebellion. He sighed. He would wait for three months and devise a plan during them. After that, he will strike.

He changed his thought on the son of his late successor. He liked the boy very much, he was very fond of him. He was smart and while little coldhearted and too unforgiving for the aged man's taste, he was very good to those he liked and cared about them. But he couldn't help but see two dangerous persons in him. His late student and „son" Orochimaru, and his rival, Shimura Danzo. He was going to do anything it took to achieve his goals and held no real loyalty to the Leaf like Orochimaru. While holding many secrets and operating from the shadows just like Danzo.

He didn't know the extent of the boy's knowledge and skill, but it probably was even above his at that age. The boy was the smartest six years old he ever met. He also was no longer a child, just adult in little body. He held himself like predator, his posture seemingly overconfident and relaxed, but in reality ready to prevent any attack or make one. This was another trait that made him similar to Danzo. Seemingly uncaring about anything around him but in reality taking in everything that happened around him and ready to fight anything that came at him.

His eyes were sharp, taking in everything they could. But not with the curiosity of a child, but with cold calculative gaze, that was evaluating everything around. Never forgiving and forgetting. And the council was to blame, their blind hate and bigotry was the cause of this. If the jinchuuriki status of the boy was held secret, the boy could live normal and happy life. But before he could ensure it would happen, council passed several laws that lessened the power of the village leader. And so he couldn't do such things and only save the bits that weren't destroyed by the council gaining power.

The situation of the Leaf was rather bad. The corruption grew to great proportions, the council members being the most corrupted of them all. And he could do nothing without ruining the Leaf. He couldn't overpower them politically because of the laws they passed. He lacked the resources to overpower them economically and if he made secret orders to get rid of them, it would scare of most of the civilians and wandering traders and send the Leaf to economical decline. And he wouldn't risk that as it would be just as bad as it was now, if not worse.

Seeing as his headache only grew when he was thinking about those things, he opened one of the drawers in his table and took out his pipe and lit it, inhaling the calming smoke and relieving himself of some stress. He then took out one of his small sake bottles, that contained the best sake made in Demon Country. He emptied it in one swig and threw it away, taking out his beloved orange book. This was the only way for him to completely get rid of stress. And he had no need to become bald because of the stress the damned council gave him, being old, wrinkly and white-haired was enough. He opened the book and started giggling perversely.

**Two months later, Shrine near the Uchiha district, Village Hidden in Leafs, 30.5. 3041EE, cca 2200hrs**

Naruto was sneaking through the forest behind the Uchiha clan district. He was going to enter it and to steal some scrolls on fire techniques seeing as he had only the fire clone and it's explosive version, that he created. However, he stopped when he noticed a figure clad in black hooded cloak standing near a shrine located on a hill near the Uchiha district. Fortunately, the figure was overlooking the clan compound under it. Naruto, however, became curious what the figure wanted. Perhaps it was another thief wanting to steal something? But he was brought out of his musings by a small burst of smoke near the figure in the cloak. From his position, he could see it was ANBU, by the black color of his attire, Spec Ops. The ANBU wore a weasel mask which was clearly visible, by the blue color of the markings of the mask, he was a colonel rank. This meant this ANBU was pretty important, seeing as colonels were leading brigades of ANBU.

The brigade consisted of 250 four men cells led by sergeants, that had yellow markings, meaning this man had had 1000 of the best ninjas of the village under his command. He wondered what someone as him was doing here. They were meant to be absolutely loyal to the village and while he doubted none of them would never ever betray it, the probability was quite low. He pushed chakra to his ears boosting the capabilities of his already enchanted hearing.

"What is the situation, Shisui?" asked the ANBU.

The cloaked man, now identified as Shisui, was silent for a moment before answering: "Worst possible. The planning was completed even though we were sabotaging the process from the very start. They found out Yoshitagu was against the coup and burned him alive along with his followers and closest. Official version is, that he was trying out new technique and it backfired badly, the result being his death. As for his family, they "committed suicide because of the grief from the loss", your father dealt with them personally. His gang was tortured and forced to admit they killed several people outside of the clan with the help of everyone in their families. Those people actually were killed by the rebels in preparations for the coup. The laws were followed, you can find the bodies in the morgue. They didn't found us out though, so we can continue. Although there will be only three "loyal" Uchihas left. The day of the coup was set on the tenth June. The last meeting will take place on third June and will hand out the final orders."

The ANBU nodded and voiced another question: "And our another project?"

Naruto didn't know what this project was because Shisui said nothing. But he probably had it with himself because the ANBU gasped and silently asked "How?"

Shisui chuckled before answering "Quite easily. You know, that if one wants to acquire the standard version, he has to hold small amount of chakra in his eyes for about ten minutes. This mostly happens when you are trying to fight superior opponent, that's why our clan believes the eyes can only be obtained in combat. But we found out it's not true. To the Mangekyo, you just have to push great amount of chakra into your eyes while you have the standard Sharingan activated and then cut it off quickly. This happens only when you tear your greatest bond to someone by killing him or her. But as you can see, this also can be done by just one's chakra without the killing part."

The cloaked man started walking to the shrine while waving at his ANBU companion to follow him while explaining more things to him. As Naruto was slowly following the Uchihas, so they wouldn't get out of his hearing range, he found out the shrine was defended by many barrier seals from old ages, ones of them being the seals that masked the chakra spikes. There, the Uchiha ANBU would try to activate the second level of the Sharingan. He also found out, that there were techniques that could be used with the eyes and another information, of course only visible to the wielder. They also talked about the downside of going blind and how it could be prevented by using each other's eyes and how they planned to transplant them later.

But then came the biggest shock when they started to talk about the coup in more details than when they were outside. He found out everything about how the Uchihas were planning to take over the Leaf and how these two were going to stop them with their newfound powers on the Hokage orders, leaving only Itachi's, as Shisui called the ANBU inside the shrine, mother and brother and Shisui's fiancee alive. They were given permission to tell them they did it because of the coup, but not that it was an order from the village leader. After that, they had to leave and become spies for the Leaf in the Rogue-nin circles while being branded as Mid S-Rank criminals.

This part could be confusing for some people but not for Naruto. He understood why there was the need to lie to the rest of the village. If they knew about the coup, they would distrust the living ones even when they were the reason it didn't happen. The other problems were clan heads and their clans. If they knew Hokage issued an order to exterminate whole clan, no matter the reason, they would feel threatened and would most likely try to get rid of the village head or another things like moving out of the village.

He left and headed home forming another plan. He would just steal the scrolls few days after the massacre, reasons were obvious. However even this plan was changed when his tenant voiced his opinion **'I think you should go to the compound right after the massacre. That way, I will be able to try something, and don't ask me what, because I won't tell you. If the results will be as I think they will, I will give you a very interesting birthday present. Now speed up, I think your sister feels worried about you. You were out for about hour more than you told her you would be.'**

**Naruto's birthday, Naruto's apartment, Village Hidden in Leafs, 10.10. 3041EE, 1230hrs**

Naruto and Akiko were eating a somewhat celebratory meal seeing as it was Naruto's birthday. While eating the meal, Naruto was replaying the events of the previous months.

He went to the Uchiha compound barely minute after seeing the two "traitors" leave. He found a body of Uchiha with Jonin flak jacket. He then pushed the chakra of the fox into the corpse. The body slowly dissolved into foul smelling brown liquid, but this probably wasn't what the fox wanted because this happened to everyone who was "fed" with the corrosive chakra, especially when the amount was equal to mid-jonin reserves. However, the fox was satisfied and so he left. He went there after week to search for techniques only to find they were hidden in library accessible only for those with activated Sharingan.

After that, nothing much happened. Naruto trained himself to the ground every day and so did Akiko until 12th July happened. That day, Akiko was finally able to steal weapons, twenty new kunai with top notch quality, and even scroll containing **Fire Realease: Burning Ash Cloud Technique** , a High B-Rank technique, with which the user expels large amount of ash from his mouth and can ignite it with click of his teeth, when he is still expelling the ash, or with tiger handseal after he created the cloud of ash. Naruto perfected this technique in two weeks and also trained Akiko in the academy level stuff.

Surprisingly, for a kid of her age, she was really good at it and managed to also master all of the things before the end of the august so he could start to teach her the academy level things he learned from the library. Then came the September and Akiko's birthday, which they spent in the apartment with small celebration and cake courtesy of Naruto's newfound baking skills and a black outfit, similar to his (bandana with steel plate, jonin style vest, pants with many pockets, army style boots, long sleeved t-shirt, fishnet undershirt and leather gloves), but instead of being black, hers was with camouflage pattern made with several shades of grey and bit of black here and there. The rest of the September was filled with training with Akiko getting halfway through the additional academy level skills and Naruto mostly focusing on the physical aspects of training.

Nothing interesting happened and so here they were, finishing their meal and waiting for the "gift" he was going to get from the furry ball with nine tails. Just as he thought about the fox being furry ball, he felt immense pain in his eyes and could feel his warm blood streaming down his cheeks and could hear the voice of Akiko who was panicking, but he was unable to get the words right because of the pain he felt and the shock into which he fell.

After about two minutes, the pain subsided and he opened his eyes making Akiko gasp. And Naruto knew why. Smirking, he got rid of the blood on his cheeks and mutered thanks, earning a low growl as a response. He left the fox alone as he probably went to get some relax. He then entered one of the bathrooms and looked into a mirror. And saw exactly what he thought he would, his eyes being red with a faint circle and one tomoe.

He also noticed his vision was even more improved, destroying his doubts of that being possible. He started playing with the eyes, pushing small amount into them and making them glow, spin the tomoes with different speed in each eye and such things. Then he started to test the enchanted vision he got by spinning the tomoes faster and faster while pushing more and more chakra into them, making them glow bright red. He reached around 5000 rpm when his eyes morphed into different ones. The faint outline of circle disappeared and instead of tomoes, he had three kunai without the handle and just the circle at the end of the blade. Now it was his turn to gasp and for the Kurama, who was actually pretty much awake, to chuckle.

' **That is your Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, kit. It is the highest level of the Sharingan. Don't worry about getting blind by the usage, I got rid of the gene that caused it. And even if I didn't, you wouldn't go blind because your blood is somehow very compatible with the blood of Uchihas and it erases all of the faults the original of sharingan could have, aside from the high chakra price the Mangekyo techniques. The compatible genes came from your father's side, I guess.**

**As for the abilities of the Sharingan. The lowest level of the standard Sharingan, which you now have, gives you better vision when activated. If you gain one more tomoe to one of your eyes, it gives you the ability to predict the next movement of people up to your level. If you both of your eyes have two tomoes, they will be able to predict the movements of people above your level, but the better than you they are, the lesser will be the accuracy of the predictions. If you gain third tomoe to one eye, it gives you the ability to catch your opponents into low level genjustu that makes them stare into your eyes instead of fightning. If you have three tomoes in each eye, you will be able to copy every elemental and non-elemental techniques as long as the caster uses all of the handseals. I don't know about the sub-elemental techniques, but seeing as you have few of sub-elements, it may be able to copy techniques for them. However copying the technique does not mean you mastered it, you will have to do it yourself.**

**The Mangekyo Sharingan gives you another bloodline release: Blaze Release. This is not sub-elemental release, but a release that uses fire element other way than the standard fire release. Then there are the techniques these eyes can do, but you will have to learn them from the shrine above the Uchiha compound. You should go there tonight and don't forget to copy the seals they have there and also to visit their library.**

**Oh, and perhaps you should tell Aki-chan about her eyes and find how the Hyugas activate them.'**

**Same day, Shrine above the Uchiha clan district, cca 2330hrs**

Naruto arrived to the shrine about half of a hour before the clock hit ten. Seemingly, there was nothing inside, but when he activated his Mangekyo Sharingan, the walls of the shrine bacame covered in text. He started to read through it and quickly found out they were about the Mangekyo, just as the Shisui said to Itachi. He read through them for about half of a hour before remembering everything there was to remember. He found out the Mangekyo Sharingan could use three techniques, Tsukuyomi – the ultimate genjutsu, Susanoo – the impenetrable armor, and Amaterasu – the all burning flames. The Amaterasu was actually a blaze release technique, but since it was controled by eyes, it didn't need the handseals.

However, then there were the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan techniques and they were on whole new level in Naruto's opinion. One of those techniques was Kamui – time space ninjutsu that allowed him to transport anywhere he once was or to anyplace he could see, which with his eyes was pretty good. It also gave access to another dimension filled with giant pillars which could be accessed only by other Eternal Mangekyo wielders. It also gave him the ability to hide part of his body there for limited time. Second technique was Koto Amatsumaki, extremely powerfull genjutsu that was able to control the tailed beast and people, but only if their will was weakened, by emotions such as hatred or love, or by other means. Another technique was Yasaka Magatama that allowed the user to create magatama made of the same extremely hard chakra that was used to create Susanoo. The standard version was composed of three magatama, that were shot out of the users sharingan. However, if one had his Susanoo activated, he could create a chain of those Magatama everywhere on the ultimate armor.

The shrine also contained information on special Fire Release/Kamui collaboration technique called **Fire Release: Blast Wave Wild Dance.** The technique was obviously High S-Rank, not only for its high chakra cost and the level of the chakra control needed, but also because of the perfect control of Kamui needed and precise timing. In this technique, user had to breathe out massive stream of fiver and the propel it at the opponent with great speeds using reverse Kamui, the effect of the time-space ninjutsu being the change from simple stream to a vortex of extremely hot flames. However he would still have to train for few years to be able to use this justu in the way it was meant to be.

He then copied the seals on the shrine and was happy to have them, as there were many types he would have to create on his own as they were only described in the fuinjutsu books and scrolls he read. Most of them were barrier seals like the seal that avoided anyone from sensing chakra spikes inside the shrine or to hear what were people inside saying if you were outside. Another very useful seals there were the reinforcement seals that made the shrine almost indestructible. He knew some reinforcement seal types from his studies but none of them were this strong and intricate.

After he got all of the seals, he headed down to the Uchiha district. He jumped from roof to roof for few moments before he got to the middle of the compound, where the library was located. He jumped down from the rooftop of the shop, on which he was, and walked to the front doors. When he came close to them, he noticed something was wrong. The door was slightly opened, so he used his sensory ability to make sure no one was inside. And indeed, no one was. He opened the door and looked inside. To his great disappointment, indeed something was wrong. There were no scrolls inside anymore. He cursed silently because of this. He really hoped he would get some techniques tonight.

' **At least you got the information on the Mangekyo and the seals from the shrine. If you want to learn new techniques, you will have to find where the scrolls were moved or another library that contains some of them or steal few of them from ninja on the streets.'**

The boy nodded, there really wasn't anything else he could do now. He could somehow find out where the Uchiha library was now, but he doubted he would be able to. Finding another clan's library would be as hard as finding the Uchiha's, because they were mostly hidden and the clan members were talking about them only when they were in their compound. Well that, and the probability of them having techniques he could use were low. Inuzuka had their nintaijutsu, Nara their Shadow Art and so on, but he couldn't really use them, because they would find out he stole them. The smaller clans, on other hands, were very secretive and there was probability of them not having any at all.

But to steal them from common ninja shouldn't be that hard. As for the clan techniques, he figured he could learn them and steal them. He could still make sure no one knew he could. And he could make similar techniques and say he just imitated them if they asked him about it. Yes, that would be the best thing he could do. Seeing as Akiko wasn't waiting for him to return today, he could spend out as much time as he wanted without worrying her. He took off to the rooftops again and headed to the closest compound, the Tazuka clan compound.

The Tazuka clan was one of the lesser clans that specialized in Earth element ninjutsu. They had no bloodline and as their specialization hinted, most of the members had earth elemental nature. The clan was really small, second smallest of the Leaf's 26 clans. It had only 27 members, but all of them were ninjas, active or retired, and all of their kids were attending academy. There were 15 active ninjas in this clan, eleven chunnin, three jonin and one elite jonin. This was the information Naruto got from library or gained by eavesdropping on conversation when he was on his morning run or on a robbing streak.

The clan compound was small, composed of two houses, garden in front of them and two training grounds behind them. The houses were both on ground level and built in traditional Japanese style. The most used colors in the compound were dark orange, in which were the wooden parts of the houses and the roofs, and beige, in which were the walls. There were only two guards, one in front of the compound gates and one on the roof of the house closer to them. From this, Naruto concluded that, that house was probably the residence of the clan head and it was more possible that this house held the clan library if it had any, but he was going to search the second house anyway.

He used his sensory abilities and found out, that there were no guards in the corridors between the rooms and the whole house held thirteen people inside. He entered the house through a window in one unused bedroom and searched through it. After few seconds he hit something akin to a jackpot. In one of the cabinets, he found three ninjutsu scrolls containing four Earth element ninjustsu: **Earth Release: Body Hardening Technique (High B-Rank), Earth Release: Mud Wall Technique (Low B-Rank), Earth Release: Earth Wall (High B-Rank), Earth Release: Rock Wall (Low A-Rank).** He then left the bedroom and tried to find another one without occupant, not daring to enter the rooms with people inside. That would be really stupid idea, because while he could probably find more techniques inside, he could also stumble upon someone awake and that would be a serious problem.

He searched through all of the other empty rooms but only found an **Earth Release: Mud Clone Technique (Mid C-Rank).** It was still better than nothing though. He left the second house and used his sensory abilities to search the first house, which was bigger than the first one. There were no guards inside as well, so he entered the house the same he did with the previous one.

Searching through this house took him more time as there were not only the bedrooms, but various studies as well. But there was no sign of library. However, he still found few ninjutsu scrolls and various books and scrolls on other ninja related subjects that weren't in the central library of the Leaf. As for the ninjutsu, he found few of them: **Earth Release: Dust Clone (Low D-Rank), Earth Release: Earth Clone Technique (Mid C-Rank), Earth Release: Rock Clone Technique (Low B-Rank), Earth Release: Mud Flow River (High B-Rank)** and finally **Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld (Mid A-Rank).**

He left the compound and headed to another nearby compound. He searched it through and headed into another. This continued for another few hours and he successfully robbed all of the small clans. However, he only found a small amount of techniques, because the other clans were protecting their secrets much better than the Tazuka clan.

He found only 29 techniques in 19 compounds and to make it better, he couldn't use ten of them, because they were bloodline techniques of the Kurama clan. The other techniques were: **Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique (Low A-Rank), Earth Release: Mud Flow Dragon Projectiles (High B-Rank), Wind Release: Dust Cloud Technique (Mid B-Rank), Water Release: Destruction Torrent (Mid A-Rank), Fire Release: Mythical Phoenix Flower Technique (High C-Rank), Lightning Release: Earth Flash (Low B-Rank), Lightning Release: Bolt (Mid C-Rank), Lightning Release: Lightning Barrage Technique (Mid B-Rank), Lightning Release: Lightning Wolf Technique (Mid B-Rank), Lightning Release: High Voltage Pack (Mid A-Rank), Wind Release: Pillars of Wind (Mid B-Rank), Wind Release: Godly Wind from the Mountains (Low A-Rank), Fire Release: Dragon Flame Technique (Mid C-Rank), Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique (Mid B-Rank), Fire Release: Explosive Mist Technique (Low A-Rank), Wind Release: Wind Cutter (Low B-Rank), Wind Release: Sword of Wind (Low A-Rank)** for ninjutsu and **Demonic Illusion: Hellfire Technique (Mid B-Rank), Heavenly Illusion: Temple of Nirvana Technique (High A-Rank).**

It could've been better, but it was still big enough amount of techniques to keep him busy for few years if he wanted to master them enough to use them without handseals and the name. Plus there still was the maturing of the standard Sharingan and the Mangekyo Sharingan techniques to master.


	4. Chapter IV: The Fated and The Hated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, share your thoughts with me please. It helps me a lot if I know what you like and what you don't, what is good and what needs improvement.

**Half of Year later, Chunnin training ground 27, Village Hidden in Leafs, 10.4. 3042EE, 2000hrs**

Naruto was panting after his last and successful attempt to master the combination of **Earth Release: Mud Flow River (High B-Rank)** and **Earth Release: Mud Flow Dragon Projectiles (High B-Rank)**. For the half of the year, he also mastered other techniques.

From the techniques he stole in compounds, it were: **Earth Release: Body Hardening Technique (High B-Rank), Earth Release: Mud Wall Technique (Low B-Rank), Earth Release: Earth Wall (High B-Rank), Earth Release: Mud Clone Technique (Mid C-Rank), Earth Release: Dust Clone (Low D-Rank), Earth Release: Interception Technique (High D-Rank), Earth Release: Earth Clone Technique (Mid C-Rank), Earth Release: Rock Clone Technique (Low B-Rank), Wind Release: Dust Cloud Technique (Mid B-Rank), Mythical Phoenix Flower Technique (High C-Rank), Lightning Release: Earth Flash (Low B-Rank), Lightning Release: Bolt (Mid C-Rank), Lightning Release: Lightning Barrage Technique (Mid B-Rank), Lightning Release: Lightning Wolf Technique (Mid B-Rank), Wind Release: Pillars of Wind (Mid B-Rank), Fire Release: Dragon Flame Technique (Mid C-Rank), Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique (Mid B-Rank), Wind Release: Wind Cutter (Low B-Rank)** and **Demonic Illusion: Hellfire Technique (Mid B-Rank).**

However, when he was training to mature his Sharingan, he also managed to get few more techniques: **Fire Release: Grand Fireball Technique (Low C-Rank), Water Release: Gunshot (Low C-Rank), Wind Release: Wind Projectile (Low C-Rank)** from a group of Chunnins and an interesting technique from one of the Elite Jonin, **Fire Release: Burning Ash Road (Mid B-Rank).**

As for his Sharingan, he managed to fully mature the standard version of it. He also mastered the **Amaterasu** and **Tsukuiomy** techniques of the Mangekyo Sharingan and was well on his way to master **Susanoo.** As for the techniques available only for Eternal Mangekyo wielders, he hasn't attempted to even use one of them yet. He would try them and master them in the future, but they weren't needed now. The standard Mangekyo Sharingan techniques were powerfull enough to take care of the opponents far above his level if he ever needed to fight them.

His physical prowess rose from Mid-Chunnin level to High-Chunnin, but to reach the Low-Jonin level, he needed to double his skills. And that would be quite hard, as reaching the High Chunnin level took him few years. He realized there was no way he would be Low Jonin when he entered the academy and Mid Jonin when he graduated. At best, he would be Low Jonin in his second Academy year. But this were his physical skills. In most of his others, he reached the Low Jonin level already, if not higher. Even in skills like interrogation and torture. The people he used for this were probably scared shitless even now.

He left the training ground and started thinking about Akiko's progress. His little sister was doing great. She had accessed her mindscape with little help from Naruto and was now able to remember everything just like him. She knew all of the Academy Books he gave her or wrote them down for her using his memory. She also fully mastered the transformation and replacement and only had to use the last handseal to make clone. Her chakra control was great, as expected from people with Hyuga blood. Her reserves, while nowhere near Naruto's, were bigger than those of her peers. Mainly because they weren't training yet. She had Low Genin reserves already and was increasing them at great speed. For a four/five years old girl to have that much was unheard of in these days.

As for her other skills, she was on High Academy/Low Genin level. She also managed to wake her bloodline, the Byakugan, and could now use it without the handseal and name to help her activate it. She also started to try to recreate the way the Hyuga clan used their chakra. However, she became quieter after she found out she was descendant of one of the Hyugas, a powerful and rich clan, but was left to her own devices outside the village. Naruto, however, didn't told her, that someone wished her death.

He stopped thinking about it when he noticed ten chakra signatures on roofs around the alley in which he was. He focused on them and found, that they were all from low to high genin level in terms of chakra and if the way they masked them was any indication, they weren't above the high genin level in the other aspects. When he was exactly in the centre of the alley, they sprang to action. Six of them entered the alley, three on each end, and the remaining four were positioned on the roofs of the buildings on each side of the alley, probably to prevent him from escaping that way. All of them were clad in black cloaks, black shinobi sandals, and had blank black ANBU mask with kanji for Root on their forehead. He quickly released his Gravity Seals.

One of them tried to say something, but Naruto wasn't going to listen to it. He fired several **Water Release: Gunshot** techniques at the three in front of him, successfully hitting two with one dropping down dead as the blunt force of the technique destroyed his insides and the other one yelping painfully as two techniques hit his right forearm and right part of his ribcage and broke the bone in his arm and several of the ribs. The last one had managed to dodge the balls of water by ducking behind several trashcans.

For those behind him, at the time he started spitting the water projectiles, he made three mud clones and three explosive wind clones with chakra molded to slice. The mud clones attacked and the explosive ones were running behind them. The mud clones engaged the little roots in taijutsu battle, but before any of them could kill one of the Root members or be dispelled, the explosive clones arrived and dispelled themselves, creating several explosions of wind that sliced through almost everything, the Root members including. That end of the alley now looked like someone dumped spare parts for Frankenstein there.

Meanwhile, Naruto took care of the two still living Tree bottoms on his end. The injured  
one was no problem, he just threw few senbon at him and hit several of vital spots, killing the boy instantly. As for the girl who ducked behind the trash cans, he used **False Vision: Drowning in Worms** on her. Poor little thing shat and urinated herself before falling unconscious. At least she didn't feel the pain of her body being burned down by the **Fire Release: Grand Fireball Technique** before her body hit the ground.

Naruto then looked around, noticing the remaining little Roots were still on the roofs, probably furiously rocking their brains and trying to come up with something, that would take him down. He checked his reserves, noting that he had around half of his reserves. He was now really happy he had his bloodline and Kurama inside of him, as his reserves were regenerated in less than half of a hour instead of three to five hours.

He made another mud clones, now eight, and sent the at the genin level ANBU and prepared himself for what was to come when he noticed a very big chakra signature approaching. The level of masking on this signature was even above of the ANBU patrols. And if he had to evaluate this one the same way he evaluated the Root members, then he was fucked. However, he had his expressionless mask still on him. No need to show his opponent he would be actually glad if he lived through this. He could hear the slashes and tears as his clones took care of the cloaked attackers. He noted that they were all without a scratch. That meant those on the roofs were probably the weakest of the group, that attacked him.

If he only knew someone else would happen to want to be in his presence, he would've made twenty or so clones and would retreat. But that was only "what if?". He needed to prepare for this new threat and so he positioned his clones on the roofs. But before they could do anything, they were all blown away by powerful gusts of wind. At the same time, a man in his late fifties or early sixties appeared in front of him in similar gust of wind. This was another thing Naruto added into his list "Why not to fight with this man?". Only the Elite Jonin and above were known to use the elemental body flicker because of the level of control the technique needed. Those people ,who could, used it because it was much faster than standard body flicker while consuming the same amount of chakra.

The man wore the same attire as the little shits who attacked him earlier. They stared at each other for a while, before the Root ANBU in front of him took down his hood and mask. The face behind the mask shocked the young boy. It was Shimura Danzo, the leader of the Root. But before he could even ready himself for attack, Danzo held up his hands in appeasing gesture.

"I am not here to fight, Uzumaki. I am here, because I wish to discuss something with you. As for the Root recruits, I merely sent them to test you, they would never seriously hurt you or kill you. As for the results, I have to say you were exceptional." Danzo offered him a small smile, but his eyes were just as emotionless as they were when he was talking in his monotone voice.

Naruto looked at him warily before slowly asking: "And what it is you wish to discuss?"

Danzo's smile disappeared "Your close future. I have an offer for you: I will train you and you will do my bidding. Worry not, it will be nothing too… drastic on your young mind. You will simply take care of few troublemakers. As for my end of the bargain, I will spar with you and point out holes in your skills. To take care of them, however, will be your work. We both know I can't train you fully because I would lose the good relations I have with several powerful council members."

Naruto thought about it for a moment. He would get the Darkness of the Shinobi as sensei for killing few idiots who probably were selling some information to other nations or something like that. Too easy in his opinion. There had to be something the man wanted him for. And the only thing he could want him for was Kurama, as there was no way he could know about his other powers even if he knew how to find him, because he never fell any chakra source nearby. He probably wanted to make the boy feel indebted to him. Well, too bad Naruto never took debts. He either stole or bought. And he didn't feel like buying this time.

He also knew the man once wanted him so he could train him to be a weapon of the Leaf. He called him The Fated weapon and of the records said he considered taking him even if he become hated by the council. This was said to old geezer on the throne and he knew it from the memories of his first week of life, that Kurama had shown him.

But the man could also mean to just make him stronger. Despite hating the village more than anything else, he still was their weapon. It wasn't like he could leave anyway. If he did so, he would be hunted down by every land on elemental continent and even some power hungry morons wanting to conquer them all. And he didn't have enough power to fight them all nor he would ever have. Even if he could use Kurama's chakra to its maximal potential, he would be lucky if he could take care of the Ninja from the Leaf. The others would then have easy work and he would end up being a prize for the one who found his exhausted body first.

He remembered, that every Major Village had from 300 000 to 500 000 active Ninja. The average for the smaller ones was number 47 000 and there were about thirty of them. Plus Rogue Ninja insane enough to think they could rule the world and standard armies of the countries. Only the Land of Fire had 1 000 000 Samurai who were able to use chakra just as much as ninja could and the standard army and militia stopped at number 10 000 000. He could never hope to take down forces that big. For that, he would need to have at least the resources of three countries the size of the Land of Fire and a great deal of luck.

"I accept your offer."

Danzo was silent for moment before saying anything."Very well, meet me at the Chunnin training ground 3 tomorrow at three o'clock in afternoon. We will have our first spar and you will be given your first target." With that said, he disappeared in another gust of wind.

Naruto finally let his emotionless mask slip and sighed. Well, at least he had the chance to get better. Yes, he was smart and he had two and a half thousand years old demon at his disposal, but he lacked experience and there were actually very few things Kurama knew about humans and their way fighting. He would give it a shot only to find out if the offer was true. If Danzo wanted to kill him or kidnap him, he could do it himself few seconds ago or send someone better suited for it than those kids who were laying dead in the alley or on the roofs.

He looked at the boy killed by his first water technique and noticed he didn't have the mask anymore and his thin and long face was revealed to the world. When he looked at him, he could only compare him to a horse. He was really happy for the way his face looked from that moment. He , of course, understood why the masks were removed. Danzo would be in deep shit if they found out Root was still active more than ten years after it was disbanded by the Fourth.

**Next Day, Roof of Carlton Hotel, Village Hidden in Leafs, 11.4. 3042EE, 2200hrs**

Despite him thinking he would take care of some lowly traitors, he was actually going to do pretty hard jobs. Or at least the first one was pretty hard. He was waiting hour and half before the ANBU left the roof of the hotel where his target was located. It was the most luxurious hotel in Leaf, only used by the richest of people and most important foreign dignitaries and owned by rich man from the Western Continent.

His target was both. Inaba Yoshicune was fifth richest man of the Bird Country, The Head of the Council of Nobles in said country and also owner of several businesses in Elemental Nations. He also had his fair share of less legal activities and his possessions were worth about 3 000 000 000 Ryo, the money on his accounts was around five times more though. At least according to the info Danzo gave him along with a blank ANBU mask and black hooded cloak so he could hide his identity more properly.

He used the door on the roof, that were supposed to only be used by workers repairing roof and such things, and entered the building. He quickly ran through the corridors, using his sensory ability to sense the people coming his way and hiding before they could see him. After few minutes of running and hiding, he finally reached the corridor in which were the doors leading to his target's apartment. In front of them stood a Ninja. Naruto took out three senbon laced with paralyzing poison and threw them at the ninja. He hit him in the neck and waited few moments before the ninja fell to the ground paralyzed, only his eyes were moving around, trying to find out what happened, before they settled on him knowingly.

Naruto now took in the appearance of the ninja properly. He had blonde hair, lightly tanned skin and black eyes. He was wearing simple light brown pants and flak jacket, also the standard shinobi sandals in the same color. He had no pouches on him nor any other notable things. His flak jacket didn't even have any pockets. He had a forehead protector with the strap being the same light brown color. As for the plate, he had a kanji for Inaba on it. He was probably one of the diplomat's bodyguard ninja who didn't belong to any shinobi village.

Naruto opened the door to the apartment and immediately heard moans and groans, that weren't audible through the thick doors and walls of the. He closed the door quickly and followed the sound through the apartment made in 19th century European style. He came to the doors leading to bedroom and opened them slightly. Inside was a fat bald man in his late forties sitting on a bed while young woman, pale skinned with long straight brown hair, 40D sized breasts and green eyes which fortunately weren't looking in his direction, was on her knees in front of him slowly sucking his cock. The man was moaning and groaning loudly, apparently enjoying the way the slut was blowing him.

Naruto took out another senbon, now coated in extremely powerfull toxin created by Sasori of the Red Sands, and hit him to the neck just as he hit the guard. The sped up blood flow in the man's body would help the toxin spread and he would be dead before any medical help could come. When he was leaving, he could hear the woman start screaming for help just before he closed the door.

Next morning, all of the newspaper and radio and TV news were filled with the assassination of a foreign dignitary in the luxurious hotel in the Leaf, the cause of death being an extremely powerful toxin created by a infamous puppeteer from the Sand. The witnesses were his bodyguard and one of his concubines. The description of the assassin was given only by the bodyguard, as the concubine was pleasuring her master and hadn't noticed a thing before he started gurgling and coughing up blood. The news also stated, that investigation was already started and was led by Nara Shikaku, the Second in command of the Leaf and the Clan Head of the Nara Clan.

**Next Day, Library of the Leaf – Jonin Section, 12.4. 3042EE, 2330hrs**

Naruto was rummaging through the Taijutsu scrolls in the Jonin section of the library. He was here because of the spar he had with Danzo yesterday before he was given his target. Danzo said he was really good for his age, but lacked variety of styles. Danzo who knew more of them, was able to thoroughly kick the crap out of him after he changed to style based on strength which was good against speed based attacks, as it's katas were made to withstand much stronger punches than the ones he was giving.

So here he was, trying to get a scroll on style that would interest him on a Taijutsu based on Agility and Strength. For the Agility, he gave up, because the styles in the Leaf library were having the Agility in the second place at best. But for the strength based style, he found something very useful. The style was named Iron Fist and its second element was speed, which suited him just fine. He quickly memorized the scroll with all of its katas and also techniques. That was something, that made him interested in the style even more, as most of the Taijutsu styles, including Fast Fist, had no techniques. He then quickly left the library and headed to his apartment.

**Month Later, Main Market Street of Leaf, 15.5. 3042EE, 1830hrs**

A boy in his early teens was slowly strolling through the market street, stopping in front of few stores to window-shop. He was of average height and weight for his age, his skin was slightly tanned and he had raven-black messy hair that reached his shoulders. His eyes were of dull grey color, his face was what you would call unmemorable, because he looked just like every second male in Leaf, if it wasn't for a scar running from above his right eye down his cheek and stopping in the middle of his neck. He wore simple light blue t-shirt and black jeans. On his feet were black boots with several Anarchy symbols.

He walked for a small while before reaching a caravan from Grass, that was selling various perfumes of the highest quality. For the highest price of course. In the middle of the caravan was a luxurious, mobile home type of carriage. This was his target. He slowly strolled near it and then took out kunai with explosive note on it and threw it under the carriage and then slowly walked away. Just as he was going to start the fireworks, small girl, about six-seven years old ran past him. He was now grateful he had ten seconds before the note went off. Using body flicker, he caught the girl and then disappeared in another cloud of smoke.

Just as he appeared in a side-alley, a thunderous explosion could be heard from the direction of the main street. He let go of the girl who was looking at him with fear. She had pale skin just like he had, platinum colored long straight hair held in ponytail, cute face that would become rather pretty in future and ice blue eyes. She wore a ninja style sandals in purple color, along with purple spandex shorts and a purple shirt that was too big for her.

She stood there in shock for a while before stuttering out: "Y-You k-knew… the e-explosion…"

The boy nodded: "I made it."

The eyes of the girl widened with even more fear: "P-Please don't… I-I-I won't tell anyone!"

The boy chuckled slightly before asking: "What is your name?"

"I can't tell you… s-sorry, but mom-"but she was interrupted by the boy.

"If you don't tell me, then I will have to kidnap you." He said in serious tone, though inwardly he was laughing. It was quite cruel joke he was making, especially after he blew up someone on the street and she also knew he did, but it wasn't like he was really going to harm the girl. It was fun to watch her trying to disappear from his sight, although it was impossible with her choice of clothing and her pale body parts. And he also wanted to test the girl. If she never said she met him, maybe he could contact her in the future for something he needed.

"Y-Yamanaka I-Ino…" she answered after few moments.

So she was Yamanaka. This opened new possibilities for the boy. If she didn't compromise him, he would contact her as fast as he could.

"Very well Ino. And why would you promise me you won't tell anyone?" he asked.

The fear in the eyes of the girl diminished and was replaced by surprise: "Because you saved me."

The boy smiled slightly. "Very well, Ino-chan. Go home and don't tell anyone!"

The girl blushed slightly at the suffix, but nodded and ran off. The boy chuckled as his form started to melt and changed into a boy around her age, with silver hair and almost completely covered in black clothing. Aside from his hairs, only small portion of his pale face was visible. His eyes were hidden behind a sunglasses. He then turned and jumped to the roofs. There was no time to stroll around anymore.

When he read through the newspaper tomorrow, they were filled with the terroristic attack, but no one knew who did it. No one even knew who could as no one saw someone suspicious. He smiled slightly under his mask. It was time to meet miss Yamanaka again.

**From 17.5. 3042EE to 31.8. 3043EE**

Naruto met Ino the next day and revealed his true self to her. She took it better than he expected. After that, they became good friends, although he never used Ino as accomplice in his work for Danzo, although he intended to do so when he met her first time. Ino even started to train with him and Akiko. Nartuo gave her the same plan he made for Akiko and Ino became really good in stealth and thievery. She was also very good in gaining information and her progress with her mindscape was really astonishing, although it had to be expected from someone born to a clan with techniques focused on mind. When they were to enter Academy, she was already halfway through the Academy level stuff.

His spars with Danzo were brutal, yet he learned many things from them and gained the much needed experience. He also found out many things about the man and although he still saw some flaws in his philosophy, if he would have to choose one from the Danzo's and Hiruzen's way of doing things, he would chose Danzo's. It was much better suited for the ninja world than the nearly pacifistic ways of the current village leader. Thanks to this they became somewhat of an acquaintances with good terms and Danzo promised him some more, now paid, missions in the future. And it also happened.

**First Mission, Doors into Naruto's apartment, 22. 8. 3042EE, 0610hrs**

Naruto was going to leave his apartment for his morning jog, but when he opened his door, he noticed something under weak genjutsu on his door mat. He dispelled the technique and picked up the envelope which was hidden under it. It was quite thick and he immediately knew what was inside of it. He re-entered his apartment and opened it quickly.

Inside was a photo of a man. He looked to be in his late sixties/early seventies. He was bald and had long beard that reached his waist. He was dressed in what looked to be expensive robes of emerald green color. On the other side of the photo was a note: Yamagichi Yukihisa, Age: 71 Information: Noble from Land of Rice Fields, very wealthy, tried to buy information on the Leaf from some of the Jonin. Leaves Leaf at 7 o'clock in morning today through the western gate. Needs to be neutralized. Bodyguards: 40 – 10 Ninja (All chunnin level, Village Hidden with Sound), 30 Ronin Samurai (Able to use chakra). There is possibility of sensory being part of the group. Other personnel: 5 Concubines, 20 servants.

The next thing inside the envelope was a plastic bag filled with 250 000 Ryo in 5 000 Ryo bills and note saying he would receive the same amount after he did the job. He smiled under his mask. Things were getting pretty good. 500 000 Ryo was a nice sum of money and he wasn't going to let it slip through his hands. He quickly entered one of the rooms of the apartment which was turned into storage. He took one of the blank scrolls of mediocre size and opened it. He then prepared explosive seal, the strongest this scroll could contain, and slammed his hands onto the scroll, using his bloodline to imprint it with his chakra. He then rolled the scroll into its original state and hid it in one of the many pockets his flak jacket had.

After that, he left the apartment and headed to the western gate. It took him about three minutes to get there. He then hid behind some trashcans nearby and started to form a plan before the old fucker arrived. He came up with pretty simple plan. He would make a mud clone and solid-transform it into a beggar. He would then send the clone to the way of the carriages and then body-flicker at another position, from which he would then throw the explosive scroll.

It took the caravan more than half of a hour to arrive to the western entrance/exit of Leaf. Naruto made the clone, transformed it and sent it to bother the old man to give it some money. The caravan was composed from two carriages. One of them was luxuriously looking crimson carriage pulled by four white horses. The second was somewhat rundown, but bigger, carriage pulled by six horses of different colors, although none of them were white. Naruto was sure the first contained the geezer and the second his servants and some supplies.

He body-flickered at the roof of nearby shop and pulled out the scroll from his pocket. He got into throwing position, but watched the comedy under him. The bodyguards were trying to push the beggar out from their way, but he somehow always managed to come closer to the carriage with their boss. By the time Naruto was throwing the scroll, half of the bodyguards were trying to get rid of the man bothering them, while the other half was looking at them and laughing. The old geezer himself was looking out of one of the windows on the carriage, and the way his facial features were twisted clearly said he was beyond furious.

No one noticed the glowing scroll flying at the carriage until it hit the roof. But that was too late. The effects of the scroll were disastrous. Everything in circle with twenty meters in diameter was engulfed in the explosion. When it subsided, there was giant crater in the street. The windows in three hundred meters radius were all destroyed. However not a single building was turned to ruins, seeing as the street leading to the gates was forty meters wide.

However, Naruto wasn't there when it happened. He already left the place and headed to his apartment. When he came to his door, he noticed the same genjutsu, that he dispelled about hour before, placed on his door mat. He dispelled the genjutsu and picked up the envelope hid under it. He then entered his apartment and walked into the living room. He slumped at the coach and opened the envelope. Inside were two plastic bags. One of them contained the promised 250 000 Ryo, again in 5000 Ryo bills, and the second had another 250 000 Ryo in the same bills and a note that read: "Bonus for taking care of the others. It is good to see you follow my advice to not leave witnesses, no matter how little they know." So, if he counted properly, then he made 750 000 Ryo in hour. Considering average payment for hour in Leaf was 12,7 Ryo, it was awesome. He started liking his work more and more.

**Second Mission, Industrial District, 11.11. 3042EE, 2300hrs**

Naruto was once again on a mission. However, this one wasn't assassination. He was merely going to scare one of the richest men in Leaf and also one of the councilors, Kawakami Takuma. He was going to do it by destroying one of his storages and thus rob the man of around 50 000 000 Ryo of profit he would make by selling the goods inside and around 1 000 000 Ryo, which was the price of the storage. The best part was, that he was allowed to take anything inside, that he wanted. The payment was also very good, higher than before. If he made things properly, he would make 2 000 000 Ryo.

Getting inside was pretty easy, as there was only one civilian guard and to make it even better, he fell asleep. He entered the storage and started to look for something useful, but unfortunately found nothing of interest. So he just prepared the most complicated explosive seal of all he ever did. The seal covered the whole storage, but was designed to bring down only this one building and not harm any other. He then left the industrial district, not caring about anything else there.

Just few seconds before he entered his apartment, he heard a faint explosion. Other half of the payment for the mission was present at his door mat when he went for his morning workout.

After that, he done seven more missions. However, they were as uneventful as the second one, but paid much less, seeing as he was only taking care of some idiots trying to sell information on teams of genin, average monthly income and such things. He was given 100 000 Ryo for each of them, making it 700 000 Ryo in total for those missions and 3 450 000 Ryo for all. When he added all of the money he stole from people and the things he wanted to sell later on, it was around 4 500 000 Ryo.

As for his training, he wasn't mastering any of the techniques he stole, but he was creating new ones. Mainly D-Rank, seeing as Akiko was now learning Genin level stuff, but her chakra reserves were not big enough to use C-Rank techniques. Seeing as her affinities were water and lightning, he focused mainly on them. However he also did few techniques for other elements in case Ino would want to learn few too, but had other affinity than water or lightning.

For water, he made:

 **Water Release: Tentacles** was a High D-Rank move, made with seven handseals: Ox, Snake, Boar, Ox, Hare, Boar, Ox. It created up to eight tentacles made of water on the back of the user. Then, the user could control the tentacles to do what was needed. The chakra price was quite low. This was, however, only if the user used natural water. If he had to create water from his own chakra, then the chakra price tripled. However, because user actually gained another limbs, it was bit hard to get used to the technique and learn to control it. If one used the standard charts for ninjutsu classification, the technique was Mediocre to master. This might seem low ranking, but considering every of the few existing D-Rank techniques was considered Very Easy, or Easy at worst, when it came to mastering difficulty, it was far above average.

 **Water Release: Water Shuriken** was simple Low D-Rank ninjutsu with only three handseals: Ram, Snake, Ox. The technique was obviously used to create Shuriken from water. The chakra price was really low, both for shuriken created from natural water or ones created from chakra made water. The mastering difficulty was Very Easy.

 **Water Release: Water Ball** was powered down version of the Gunshot technique. The balls of water were smaller and slower. However, the required chakra fell, the price being more than half smaller. The handseal sequence was: Snake, Bird, Ox, Bird. The technique could be considered Mid D-Rank and it was very easy to master.

For Lightning, he made:

 **Lightning Release: Static Shock,** a Mid D-Rank technique, in which user charges small amount of lightning chakra through their whole body and when someone tries to touch them, he is then shocked by the static electricity created by the technique. The handseals were only two: Ram and Horse. The chakra cost was bigger than for the Water Release techniques, but still low enough to be considered Low/Mid D-Rank. The mastering difficulty was: Very Easy.

 **Lightning Release: Lightning Projectiles** was simple Low D-Rank technique requiring only Ram and Monkey handseals. It was used to force the Lightning chakra into projectiles for those, whom elemental control was little to non-existent and thus they couldn't fill the weapons with the natural chakra like it was normally done. However, the technique only worked when the weapons were thrown, as it would also harm the user if the weapon was held. It was very easy to master and the chakra price was E-Rank.

The last of the lightning techniques was **Lightning Release: Clone Technique** along with itss explosive version. It was made the same way the other clones were, but now with lightning chakra. The handseals were the same as the standard clone technique had, with the explosive version having additional ram handseal, but instead of using pure chakra, the user used the elemental chakra to create the clone. The standard version ate away same amount as other Elemental Clones, the explosive version had doubled chakra price of standard clone, but it was the same as with other explosive versions. Both were easy to master.

For the Earth element, he made only one technique. It was **Earth Release: Interception Technique.** It was High D-Rank defensive technique, that used few chunks of earth to prevent weapons from hitting the user. It used five handseals: Ram, Snake, Boar, Dog, Snake. The chakra price was E-Rank per the little obstacle, the chakra consumption was Low D-Rank when the user used ten and more of the obstacles.

For Fire, he made **Fire Release: Flame Fan Technique.** This technique, albeit being Mid D-Rank, was quite chakra consuming. The user, after finishing the required handsels: Tiger and Bird, breathed out flame in V-like shape with range about three metres. The technique ate away far more chakra than every other technique. The amount of chakra spent for one second was the same as the amount to create standard illusionary clone lasting for circa seven hours. However, it was still easy to master.

For the Wind element, he created **Wind Release: Wind Arrow Technique** was high D-Rank technique. It was solely offensive, as the user created arrow in his mouth and the "spat" it at the opponent. While this arrow wasn't fast, it was hard to see because of it being made of wind chakra. This was another ninjutsu with Mediocre mastering difficulty he created, However, it was still D-Rank, mainly because the arrow consumed only E-Rank amount of chakra. The handseals were Snake, Dragon and Bird.

He himself focused on the physical skills, as his other were already on low Jonin level or higher, and on the Iron Fist. However, he still practiced other things, but just to held them on the level they already were. The entering of Academy didn't bother him one bit, because he already knew everything they taught there and because he "disappeared" few years ago, the teachers wouldn't remember him before it was too late and he was already signed into the program and gone. He didn't give a fuck if they would try to hamper his progress, because as it was said before, he already knew everything they taught in academy. And even enough to get rid of any things like genjutsu, that could be on his test, or similar. The only thing he wanted was, that they wouldn't bother him before the classes even started.

However, he would still need to lay lower than usual, because the village would now know he was still alive. But he needed to go to the academy because it was the only way to become ninja in Leaf. He now wished he could do the same thing one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, Momochi Zabuza, did. He would just kill the whole graduating class, or even all of this year's graduating classes if it would ensure he wouldn't have to enter it. But in Leaf, he would probably be executed for it. Well, maybe it would happen with his class, if they bothered him too much. It would be lost time for him to even be there. If someone was idiotic enough to try something, that someone would need a grave. He just hoped he would be in the same class as Ino, that would help a lot.


	5. Chapter V: Academy Years: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave comment, please!

**Leaf's Clan District, 1.9. 3043EE, 0915hrs**

Naruto was slowly walking through the clan district. Today was the first day of the new school year. Ino and, to his great dismay, he were entering the Academy this year, along with more than thousand wannabes in Leaf and several other thousands in Academies in other cities of the Land of Fire. When Naruto found out about this, he was quite surprised. But when he thought about it, it was logical.

The shinobi wars were ended by the Lands of the Shinobi Villages, when all of them signed a secret agreement, that was meant to end the endless wars between the villages by giving control over them into the Daimyo's hands. Because of this, the Ninja become part of the state's armies. And because Ninja were the best assassins and one of the best warriors, their training in the bigger nations wasn't placed only into the Hidden Villages anymore. This increased the number of the ninjas into today's hundreds of thousands.

In the Land of Fire, there were ten another Ninja Academies, all of them in the most prospering cities. The Ninja who graduated there also had their mission assigning office there, albeit it assigned only D and C ranked missions. If the Ninjas from there wanted to do higher ranking mission, they had to travel to the Leaf and request one there. Or they could join Divisions with monthly salary. But only small amount of them were allowed to join ANBU, as they were only serving the Kage and Leaf Council and thus loyalty to the Leaf had to be even bigger than the loyalty to the Fire Country. And there weren't many from outside the Leaf who were more loyal to village where they were few times at best, than to their whole country.

He stopped his musings and stroll at one of the crossroads and waited for his friend to arrive. To make the day better, she was walking with the fat-ass and lazy-ass, who were supposed to be her best friends according to her parents. While he had nothing against her parents or Shikamaru's and Choji's, trying to push their kids into friendships that could never work was stupid, although if he had to say the truth out loud, he would say idiotic. It sounded better. As for the Shikamaru and Choji, he had nothing against them either. He just didn't feel like talking about clouds and chips today. He wanted to talk with Ino alone. Well maybe there was way to accomplish this.

He waved at them lazily and made "eye-smile", an interesting feat he learned from one of the Elite Jonin, Hatake Kakashi. He hoped the famed Kakashi of the Sharingan wouldn't mind when he found out. He seemed like nice enough guy and he didn't want to fight with him over such petty thing. Although if Kakashi would fight over such things, he probably wasn't as nice as he seemed. He was the one who copied hundred of things after all. Bitching about someone copying something he had invented would be pretty hypocritical.

He then called at them in somewhat cheerful voice: "Wanna race to the Academy?"

The two boys, fortunately, declined the offer, but Ino, who knew the boy much better than they did, agreed in the same cheerful manner. They then ran off in the direction of the Academy, but instead of going straight there, they changed the course to the nearby dango shop. When they were sure the other two heirs didn't see them, they slowed down and Ino hugged him and thanked him for giving her excuse to get lost from the sight of the "boring and very boring", as she called them. She was one of four persons he allowed to have personal contact with him, the other three being his little sister, Ayame and Teuchi. The last gave him more handshakes than hugs though.

They reached the dango stand engrossed in discussion about elemental affinities and continued even while eating. After they ate their late breakfast and had a little chit chat with the dango chef, they then headed to the Academy. However, this time they were arguing about Shurikenjutsu and the weapon they preferred. Naruto liked senbon the most, but Ino liked kunai the same way Naruto did his beloved needles. And so they were arguing if stealth and accuracy were better than the power and universality. They arrived to the Academy Grounds five minutes before the starting ceremony. The boring and very boring were there already and both were giving them curious glances.

But they didn't head over to them, instead opting to be alone. They walked over to an old oak with a swing under it and Ino sat on it and started swinging slowly. It was now, that he noticed the change in her clothes. She now had black army boots similar to his. And while she still wore the purple spandex shorts that reached just above her knees, the rest of her legs, which were previously free of any covering, were now hid under black bandages. Over the spandex shorts, she wore short skirt of the same color. It was held in place by black leather belt with holster holding ten kunai, in five rows by two, and another holding thirty shuriken, fifteen in two columns, on the right side. On the left side was another holster, this one was designed to hold two small and one standard storage scroll and it did right now, and a decent sized pouch that could hold things like explosive notes, flash and smoke bombs and such. But since they weren't going to need them today, both in the Academy and the training they were going to have after the ceremony ended, Ino probably had several lollipops hidden there. Naruto would even bet on that, as lollipops with cola flavor were her favorite sweets.

The upper part of her body was hidden under long-sleeved fishnet undershirt, on which sleeveless black hooded vest was placed. The vest had two fairly big pockets placed over her, for the time being nonexistent, breasts. Her hair was held in a high ponytail, that still reached her waist, with the help of a black ribbon. The hairs covering one of her eyes were gone, instead she had two bangs framing her face and then sliding down to her mid-thighs. That was the length rest of her hair reached too when it wasn't held back in a ponytail.

He himself also had different attire. He still used his black boots, but he didn't use the ANBU pants anymore. Instead, he had baggy pants in the same grey-black camouflage, that Akiko had, and ANBU type shin-guards under them. They were held up by dark grey leather belt with no holsters or pouches attached to it. Instead, there were almost invisible black dots on it, three on each side. They contained the senbon, kunai and shuriken.

His upper body was coated with short-sleeved fishnet undershirt, which allowed everyone to see very faint outline of something, that would become steel hard muscles in the future, with the rest of his arms being covered in the same type of bandages, that hid Ino's legs, but in the grey-black camo. Over the undershirt, he wore flak jacket in the same camouflage as his pants. This flak jacket differed from the standard Chunnin and Jonin jacket by the lack of pockets. Instead, it had several small dots, sapphire in color, that were almost un-seeable in the camouflage. Those were another storage seals, that hid another weapons and equipment. Naruto still wore his facemask and bandana with blank steel plate on it. However, the color changed into the camo, that made him almost un-noticeable in the urban setting. He also wore special shades with genjutsu seal placed on them, which prevented anyone else from seeing his eyes so he could use his Sharingan freely. His silvery hair reached to his waist.

He was brought out of his musings by the voice of one of the village elders and Academy director in one pack, Koharu Utatane. However, he quickly "muted" the speech, he could hear it hundreds of times if he wanted thanks to his control over his mindscape, and started brooding about the classes and with whom would he be placed. He was given his answer in few minutes, right after the useless old hag stopped spitting the load of bull at them. Her place on the improvised podium was taken by a black haired man in his late forties, who wore the standard jonin attire. He then said number of class and started calling out names. The last to be called were first years. First was class 101, the first 1 signalizing they were first years and thus on first floor and the 01 said in which room they would be having theory lessons. Ino was the last one who was taken to this class. Judging from the other names on the list, that class was supposed to hold elite, both ninja and economical/political, as it was composed solely from clan heirs or prominent member's children and sons or daughters of the richest and politically powerful civilians.

Then came class number 102. Naruto wasn't there, nor in the 103,104,105 and 106. Finally, after listening to names of people he didn't know, his name was called. He ended in class 107. Surprisingly enough, there were no "DEMON!" shouts or hate-filled stares. Only curious looks from his classmates. He joined their group and waited until the rest of the classes were called. In total, there were 14 classes, 13 of them with the maximum count of 100 pupils and the last one lacked only one to be full.

They were then given their teachers. Naruto's teacher was old, maybe even eigthy years old man. His name was Noda Kyoshi. He had short white hair, slightly tanned skin, black eyes and a round face with expression that clearly said: "Don't fuck with me!". Then, they were forced to enter their classrooms and spend two hours to get to know their classmates. Naruto had no interest in doing it, at least not before he found out more about them from the interactions they had between themselves.

And so he moved to the farthest row and to the chair right beside the window. He watched as the class filled with other wannabes. There were only few clan members in his class, four Inuzukas, two branch family Hyugas, one Aburame and few members of the lesser clans, 21 in total. When he now thought about it, the higher the number of the class, the higher losers there were. He wondered why he wasn't in the last class. It couldn't be Sarutobi's doing, as he didn't like favoritism. The only one who could do it was Danzo. Or at least he thought.

He then looked around the class. It wasn't much. The walls were plain white and on them were several banners like: "Will of Fire!" or "Teamwork: We work together to be best!". As for the seating, there were three rows of ten tables. The tables on the farthest side from the windows had space for three children, as did the tables at the row closest to the windows. The tables in the middle row had place for six people. That meant there was place for 120 people. The tables were each higher than the one before it, so everyone could see on the chalkboard, even if they were sitting in the desks farthest from the board.

As he was looking around, one of his classmates made her way up to his desks. She had brown hair, that fell down in waves until it stopped few centimeters under her shoulders. She had fair skin and light brown eyes. Her face was heart-shaped and very pretty for a girl of her age, seeing as most of the girls of their age had cute faces, but that was it. When they grew up, most of them lost the child-like cuteness and their face was average. But the way this girl looked now promised, that at least her face would be something pleasurable to look at.

She wore light blue short-sleeved blouse, dark jeans held by black belt and skating sneakers, white in color. She looked almost like civilian, but the illusion was destroyed by the two full kunai holsters strapped to her belt, with each containing ten of the deadly weapons.

She stopped at the side of the desk in which he was seated: "Will you find another place to sit?"

It wasn't really a question. It was an order. The way she looked at him and the tone of the voice she used made that clear. Normally, Naruto would calmly send her to the place, that would suit her better. But the combination of frustration of not being with Ino, although he would never admit that he was frustrated, and much less to Ino herself, the way his close future looked and the too loud dialogue between the Inuzukas seated in the desk under his was able to crack his self control. And now some spoiled bitch comes and orders him to fuck off, for whatever fucking reason she had? Hell fucking no! His control was broken into thousands of tiny pieces and he actually growled.

"And, pray tell, why should I?" He asked in cold voice.

The girl seemed taken aback by this, but quickly steeled herself. "Because I asked you kindly. And you, as a gentleman, should leave. And do so before I make you."

Naruto actually smirked under his mask. So this bitch thought she could take him head on. Well who he was to stop her from trying, especially when she wanted so much?

His voice wasn't cold anymore. Now it was clearly mocking: "Ah… Well, you see, I am no gentleman. Merely a ninja wannabe. And that means, that gentleman rules do not concern me. Have a nice day!" And with that said, he turned and pretended to be ignoring her. In truth, he activated his Sharingan and was looking at her from the corner of his eye, so he could dodge anything she threw at him.

The girl was actually quite red in her face. From anger, because he, some lowly nobody, opposed her, a heiress of a clan, that would soon become part of the main council, and from embarrassment, because he was clearly mocking her with his feigned ignorance and everyone in the class could see it. And with his ignorance, he was undermining her authority as the future leader of this class. Well maybe he wasn't feigning it… But damn it, no one was ignoring her! It didn't matter if he was only feigning it or really ignoring her, he was going to pay! And she would make sure he won't pull such a stunt anymore!

By the time she started doing the handseals for her technique, everyone in the class was looking at them. However, for Naruto, she was just too slow. And to top it off, he knew everything about the technique, it was one of his favorites after all. But that didn't mean he would actually let her do it. He quickly released his gravity seals, stood up and then darted at her. He brought his hand between her palms, just as she was going to do the last handseal, and successfully interrupted the initiation process for the technique. At the same time, with his right hand, he took out one of the kunai in her holster, changed his grip into the reverse grip and then pressed it to her throat, creating a small cut with few drops of blood escaping from it.

The girl was scared shitless. She actually pissed herself, if Naruto's nose wasn't lying. She started whimpering and tears started flowing from her eyes. Few seconds ago, she was all confident, now she was on the verge of fainting from fear. This happened to many spoiled brats in the ninja world. But this girl should consider herself lucky, because most of them didn't live long enough to tell their parents how scaring it was, but she would. Mainly because it would probably make the villagers remember who he was. He was happy they forgot him so thoroughly, that even his name didn't bring back memories of him. Or maybe it was because most of them didn't know his name in the first place… Well, that was besides the point now.

He looked the girl in the eyes and although she couldn't see it, because of the sunglasses, she still felt it and started whimpering a bit louder. His voice cold and emotionless, he said words she would probably hear in nightmares for several years to come: "Foolish little girl, try to do something as this again, and the amount of blood coming from your neck will be much bigger." He spiked his Killing Intent at the end, which made the girl urinate again. After that, she finally fainted and dropped down to the ground.

Glad there wasn't teacher present in the class today, he turned to the class and said: "If you know what's good for you, then this will remain our little secret. Now mind your own business, before you end up the same way." He spiked his Killing Intent again, but now focused it at whole class. Everyone turned and started chating about the "fight". Naruto was sure they wouldn't say anyone. The kids in ninja villages had something akin to mafia's law of silence. They mostly solved their problems without adults and they saw this fight like a solution ending his and the girl's problems. For them the case was closed and while they would chat about the fight for few days, they won't do anything else. Well, there were few exceptions, but that were the spoiled kids of the rich. And there wasn't even one of those kids in his class.

As for the girl, he didn't care if she would tell anyone. If she did, he would use the class as witnesses and they, loyal to their "law", would tell there was no fight. So he was fine. He then used an underpowered gunshot to wake up the girl and clean her at the same time. Fortunately, she didn't bother him anymore. Instead, she dragged herself to the opposite corner and started crying silently there, only few sobs escaping from her lips.

The rest of the time they had to spend together was quite un-eventful. However, there was something, that concerned Naruto. He noticed he had first few fan-girls. And while they weren't trying anything yet, they spent most of the time after the fight chanting about his awesomeness and looking at him. He hoped they would stop after some time, but karma was bitch and he knew it. It looked like he would be using body-flicker more than before.

When he was leaving the grounds, Ino was already waiting for him. The expression on her face told him, that she wasn't much more satisfied with her class than he was. This lifted his mood a bit, he saw it as opportunity to strengthen their friendship. When he reached her, they greeted with hug. After that, they slowly started walking in the direction.

Naruto was the one to start the conversation this time: "So, what's your class like?"

Ino sighed: "Well, I'm sure you noticed it's the "elite" class. So practically filled with spoiled brats from the civilian side, and arrogant pricks from the ninja side. I'm actually glad I have boring and more boring duo in the class. The biggest prick of them all is the "last" Uchiha. I don't even know why they call him the last… His mother and one other girl from the clan are still alive. And the two traitors too, although they left the village. He ignored absolutely anything, but not the way you probably did. He wasn't gathering info about them, he just ignored them because he deemed them unworthy to talk with. The second most arrogant in the class is the Hyuga heiress, Hinata. She actually said few words with the few people trying to talk with her, but they were all said in tone, that said "I'm better than you.". She also had support of few another main family Hyugas. Then there were several kids from the civilian side, who boasted how much money their parents have.

Well, Aburames, you know how they act. They were silently talking amongst their "hive" and avoided the other children. Inuzuka's, that are in my class, are other story though. They were yelling loudly the whole time and some of the boys even tried to hit on several girls, although I don't know why. We are eight years old for fucks sake… One of them, the current heir, was actually trying few pick up lines on me. He was bothering me so much, that I had to massage his testicles with my knee. After that experience, he stopped, so it was okay.

Then there is the Queen of the Bansheeland. I never heard someone with so high pitched voice screaming so loudly before. When the Inuzukas started badmouthing the Uchiha, she yelled out so loudly, that one of the windows cracked. And that is everything. I hate my class. What about yours?"

Naruto sighed too: "Well, most of the kids are okay, since no one of them is heir or spoiled brat. But there is one moron in my class that ruins the utopia. It's a girl, probably heiress of some clan, although I don't know why she is not in yours class or at least in the second or third. She started bothering me because she wanted to sit where I sat… Long story short, I made her piss herself and then faint."

Ino actually started laughing. It looked like karma was getting her friend back for his "work". She stopped laughing when she realized she would do the same in few years. She could do nothing else than hope that karma would be more considerate with her. As for Naruto's work, she feared him because of it at the beginning, but when she found out more about him and spent some time with him and his sister, she actually overcame the fear. It wasn't like she wouldn't do the same when she became ninja. And those people were trying to harm Leaf too, so she was actually grateful for it. As for his lack of loyalty to the village, she didn't know the reason, but she also wasn't going to bother him because of it. If he wanted to tell her about it, then he would when he was ready.

But she wanted to know more details about it and started bothering him because of it. It took her about three minutes to force him to tell her. After she heard everything, she just wished him luck with her.

**Month Later, Near Academy, Hidden Leaf, 3.10. 3043EE, 1615hrs**

Naruto was walking through the streets of the Leaf. He was heading to training grounds for Chunnin. Ever since the Academy started, he had to change his training regime drastically. He now trained when he wasn't in the Academy and he slept while he was there.

Fortunately, his teacher did not care if he slept during the classes if he had good marks on the test. And good marks were something he had. He was the top of his class, thanks to answering all of the weekly tests questions correctly and even getting all of the bonus questions right. There were only three other people in his whole year, that were able to do the same. One of them was of course Ino, who could use her mind just as good as he could, and who unfortunately couldn't go train with him today because of some celebration.

Speaking of Ino's training, she managed to get all of the Academy level theory stuff down and was currently trying to master the Academy three without using handseals, she already didn't have to say the name. As for the Academy Taijutsu Style, she already mastered all of the Katas. Her physical skills were between Low and Mid Genin Level, but her chakra control was at Low Chunnin level although she only did the leaf floating exercise. Her chakra reserves were Mid D-Rank, but she would be able to reach High D-Rank in a short time.

When he was evaluating Ino's progress, then why not to also evaluate Akiko's? She also grew much stronger. She was halfway through the genin theory stuff, already mastered the body flicker and had no problem with the solid surfaces walking. The water walking was a bit more difficult and she still didn't have it fully mastered, although she could stand, walk and even run at the water, she still had to concentrate on it. Her chakra control was Low Chunnin level. Her Reserves grew quite a bit, so they were high genin level now. Her physical abilities were now almost High D-Rank. However, she made no progress with recreating the way Hyugas used their chakra for the Jyuken strikes.

For Naruto, he wasn't making or mastering any nin or genjutsu, but just as in the previous months, held it on the same level. However, he now had Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced katas of the Iron Fist mastered and was currently mastering last few katas of the Master level. After that, he would learn the techniques for the style. His physical abilities grew, but they were still not enough to be considered low Jonin. To make it better, there was no way his bloodline could help more. Two days ago, Kurama found out, that the part of his DNA which was supposed to speed up his growth was destroyed by the genetic information from his father. This was quite unfortunate, because if he had more mature body, then his physical growth would be much faster. However, in the state his body was, he would have to train for three more months to become Low B-Rank in the physical abilities.

His train of thoughts was crushed when he noticed a well know chakra signature following him. It was the chakra signature of the girl he made urinate the very first day, the heiress of the Kurama clan, Yakumo. She was seriously getting on his nerves. First, she acts like princess. Then, after he shown her what he thought about her, she starts following him like lost puppy. She was even worse than his fan-girls. They actually stopped following him after two weeks of body-flickering away when he thought they were bothering him long enough. But Yakumo continued. And he wanted her to stop. The sooner the better.

He turned and walked into an alley on his right side, but stopped right behind the corner and turned. Not only few seconds after he did it, she came from the street which he left. When she saw him, she let out a startled 'Eeep!' and fell at her butt.

Naruto sighed before coldly asking "Why are you following me?"

Yakumo was silent for few moments before saying: "Sorry."

Naruto was taken aback by this, he never thought the spoiled princess would apologize.' Question was: For what is she apologizing? For following me, or for the incident?.'

"Sorry? For what?"

She slowly stood up and dusted down her jeans before silently answering: "For what I did in the classroom… I-I would have apologized sooner, but you were always with your blonde friend and I didn't have enough courage to apologize in front of someone else." She looked at him, her eyes filled with hope and fear at the same time.

Well it was better than he thought it would be, so he accepted the apology, said goodbye and started walking away. But after few moments, he heard Yakumo yelling at him: "W-wait please!"

He stopped walking and turned before asking: "What do you need?"

She looked down at the ground, which suddenly became very interesting for her, before muttering something. Something, that made Naruto's eyes widen in surprise. He couldn't believe his ears, he even activated his Sharingan to check for genjutsu, but found none. However, he had to hear that again to make sure he wasn't having delusions.

"I'm sorry, but I wasn't able to catch what you said. Could you please say it again louder?"

Yakumo slowly raised her head, but she didn't look him in the eyes, instead opting to look over his shoulder as if there was something interesting behind him. After a short moment of silence, she meekly asked: "C-could you please train me? You are very strong and so I hoped you could help me become stronger."

Naruto actually started thinking about it. It looked like the girl wasn't stuck up anymore."Well, maybe I could. Why do you want to become stronger?".

Yakumo actually looked him into eyes, well where she assumed his eyes were, but she couldn't be sure because of the damned shades, before opening her mouth to tell him her reasons to become stronger: "I want to be stronger, because I want to make my clan proud. I also want to show my father, that even though he had daughter instead of son, I can be at least as strong as he is."

So the girl wanted to actually prove herself. Well that was interesting. He thought it were her parents who spoiled her, but it probably was someone else. Clan elders were most likely to be that someone, if only to be in good graces with her and gain more power when she became clan head. Or someone completely else, but that wasn't important right now.

"Very well, follow me." And with that, he headed to his apartment with Yakumo few steps behind him.

**Three Months Later, Chunnin Training Ground 23, Hidden Leaf, 5.1. 3044EE, 1900hrs**

Naruto was standing at the side of his favorite training ground, Training Ground C-23. It was quite simple training ground, only a plain actually. It was covered in snow like usually in this time of a year. By his side stood his little sister. Both of them were wearing the same attire, but with a thick black cloak over it. They both looked at two girls standing in the middle of the training ground, who were facing each other.

One of them was Yamanaka Ino. Her attire changed. She still had the boots, but her bandages, shorts and skirt were exchanged for baggy purple pants held in place with the same belt she used for her skirt. The holsters and pouch were also present. She still had her fishnet undershirt. However it wasn't visible anymore as she wore a thick black hoodie over it.

Her skills were much higher than before. Ever since Yakumo joined their little group, Ino saw her as rival and pushed herself to become better and to beat her rival. She actually managed to master all of the Academy stuff and was now tearing her way through the Genin knowledge. Her physical abilities were High D-Rank, her chakra control rose to the border between Low and Mid C-Rank and her reserves were now exactly in the middle of what was considered the border between High D-Rank and Low C-Rank. That meant, that she only needed a bit more training and she would have Low C-Rank reserves.

As for Yakumo, her almost civilian attire was gone. She wore the same type of boots, but in light brown color. Her legs were covered with dark green ANBU style pants under which she wore ANBU type shin guards. The pants were held up by a brown leather belt with the same two kunai holsters she had before. The upper part of her body was hidden under light grey t-shirt on which she had brown leather jacket.

The Kurama heiress was very talented. When Naruto started training her, she already had everything taught in the first, second and third year down and after he taught her about the mindscape and how to access it, she was able to use her knowledge to the fullest. However, he also found the dark side of the Kurama bloodline during the Mindscape training. All of the Kuramas who possessed the Real Illusion bloodline were born with a schizophrenia. And their "second I" wasn't the most pleasant being in the elemental continent. Actually, it was quite lunatic and wanted to destroy the world. But fortunately, Naruto managed to create a simple seal based on his knowledge about the mind illnesses, that destroyed the fucked up version of his new friend.

Yakumo was also good at stealth and thievery, albeit not as good as Ino, Akiko or he. She learned the rest of the Academy stuff at the same time as Ino and was at the same level with her in physical abilities and even in the chakra abillities. Yakumo, thanks to her bloodline, had great imagination and thus was able to come up with strategies on the run and was also good at predicting the next movement of her opponents. Ino on the other hand, was better at long term planning and at Taijutsu and Shurikenjutsu. There was also small difference in their knowledge. While they were at the same overall level, Ino had learned the Body-Flicker while Yakumo opted to learn the false handseals technique and master the foul worm genjutsu she already knew.

There was a bit of a back story behind her learning the technique. She apparently found an old scroll with it when she was six years old. She then took it home and because it was in a really bad state, she wrote down everything that was in the scroll into a new one. She then took the original to her father and wanted to ask him to help her learn it. This was the moment when rewriting the scroll was proved fortunate, because her father declared it was a technique unfitting a Kurama heiress and took the scroll and burned it. Yakumo then learned the technique on her own, mostly in public parks where she tried it on the civilian parents watching over their children. Under Naruto's tutelage, she became very proficient with it and thanks to her bloodline, the technique looked much more realistic and was harder to dispel.

He looked at both of the girls before saying "Begin!".

Both of them sprang into action and entered a fierce taijutsu fight. Naruto didn't know why, but a thought came to his mind, which said that they resembled two lionesses fighting for a mate. The taijutsu fight was stopped when after several blocks and dodges on both sides, Ino's superiority in this field was proved by a punch she delivered to Yakumo's abdomen. The punch was strong enough to lift the brunette to the air slightly and the same gas left her lungs. Ino capitalized on this and quickly delivered a roundhouse kick to her rival's abdomen, which knocked the wind out of her again and sent her flying few meters.

Ino shot forward not intending to leave her opponent even second to recover. However, she quickly stopped when she noticed several fat worms crawling from under the snow and heading in her direction. She quickly gathered some chakra and sent a small burst of it into the area around her. The technique wavered, but didn't fade right away and Ino had to make another stronger burst to dispel it. However, at that time, her opponent was already on her feet and even threw three kunai at her.

Ino quickly dodged them, although not completely. One of them managed to cut through the sleeve on her right forearm, but the fishnet undershirt prevented it from making more damage. She then threw three of her own kunai at the Kurama heiress, bit faster than she did. However, Yakumo was able to dodge them, but soon realized it was a trap as another five kunai closed in at her quickly. She took out one of hers and managed to deflect or dodge them all. She was then made a target for the remaining two kunai and thirty shuriken, that Ino had. And she wasn't able to dodge or block them all, actually quite few of them hit her, although not head on, and slashed through her clothing and, in few places, slashed her skin. However none of the hits were close to even mildly injuring her.

She was about to throw some of her weapons, seeing as Ino was out of hers, but stopped doing so when she heard a sizzling sound on her left and behind her. Her eyes widened in recognition. To the two last kunai were attached two simple and weak explosive notes. However, they were enough powerful to take her out for few months. If she was hit, that is.

Ino watched as her opponent disappeared barely second before the explosion, substituting herself with a big amount of snow. When the explosion occurred, the melting snow was thrown into all directions. It hit Ino head on and soaked her quite thoroughly and also forced her to close her eyes for few moments. When she opened them, she noticed the worms crawling around her. She quickly released burst of chakra and tried to dispel it. But the technique was still working. She released another, much more powerful, burst of chakra. And again, nothing happened. Ino was starting to panic now. She was quite sure several kunai were heading her way right now and so she gathered half of her remaining chakra and released it in powerful burst of raw energy. The technique fortunately faded away along with the panic.

And that was a good thing, seeing as all of the kunai Yakumo had were now only two to four metres away from her. She quickly focused the last remnants of her chakra and body-flickered to the side and then closer to Yakumo. At that time, both of them were absolutely out of chakra, save for the little amount that body needed to work properly, and out of weapons. Both of them raced at each other and entered another Taijutsu fight. This was shorter than the first one and Ino again proved her dominance in it when compared with the brunette.

She caught a punch thrown by the Kurama heiress and swiftly delivered her own right to the jaw. The girl didn't have any time to recover and was bombarded by a barrage of fast and powerful blows to her abdomen, which robbed her of her breath and made her stumble and fall on her butt. Ino was capitalizing on it with a round house kick again. However this one was aimed at her opponent's head. Yakumo, awaiting really painful blow, closed her eyes. However, it never came as Ino's leg stopped only few millimeters away from her head and the blonde calmly asked: "Do you yield?"

The brunette couldn't do nothing else but to yield. She then stood up and awaited their "sensei." He came quickly along with his sister.

"Both of you did good today. But you have to be better than good. Yakumo, your first genjutsu was greatly done. However, when you are trying to deflect thrown projectiles aimed at you, use both hands, not just one. The three layered genjutsu was also great, but you shouldn't throw all your weapons at your opponent at the same time. You should save at least two kunai so you would have weapons in case your enemy would dodge all of the thrown ones. And you should especially remember this in a fight where you were without chakra and your opponent was better in Taijustu than you. As for you closing eyes, that was downright stupid and disappointed me. You should just lay down so Ino's kick would sail above you and then continue.

As for you, Ino, you too made few mistakes. You again proved you are very good in Taijutsu. Your plan with the explosive notes was good, but you still shouldn't throw all of your weapons away. Also, it is not good to panic in middle of a fight. There might be fights where you will be placed under multi layered genjutsu and you might not have the same luck you had today. Remember, that when the genjutsu is only one layered, it wavers no matter how weak your attempt is. However, when it's multi-layered, then it won't. Your body-flicker was very good, I'm glad you gained a high level of mastery over it in such short time."

He looked at his watches before saying: "Well, it looks like we have to end for now. Let's go."

He then walked both of them and Akiko home and returned to his own training.


End file.
